“The demonstrators shouted at the children behind the windows and sometimes even took photos. This incomprehensible behavior triggers fears in children,” says Sonja Dolesch, board member of the Austrian Orders Conference and chairwoman of the Association for Franciscan Education. The well-being of the children must be the top priority. “Discrepancies among adults must not be carried out on the backs of children.”
Already on Thursday, representatives of all political parties, except for the FPÖ and MFG, had sharply criticized the incidents in front of the after-school care center on Wiener Strasse. On Thursday, the ÖVP and FPÖ will introduce a joint resolution in the state parliament calling on the federal government to allow protection zones around childcare and educational facilities. “Disturbing actions” are “incompatible with the right to freedom of assembly,” it says.
At the state parliament session, the SPÖ will present a text for a “joint declaration” for voting. Protection zones around schools, hospitals and after-school care centers are “necessary”, according to the SP text – but at the same time problematic: Because “thought through” this would also mean protection zones around pharmacies and municipal offices. “There is no alternative to social interaction,” said the SP club. “Demonstrations have absolutely no place in front of the educational institutions,” affirmed LH deputy Christine Haberlander, her demand on the federal government to enable protection zones.
Protection zones around hospitals
As reported, such protection zones are planned around health facilities, vaccination and test streets. The federal government decided on a corresponding punctuation this week in the Council of Ministers. The corresponding legal basis is currently being worked on, it said yesterday at the OÖN request in the Ministry of the Interior. In the future, the police should be able to expel troublemakers from these protection zones, and demos can be broken up more easily in the protection zone.
According to the Ministry of the Interior, the Assembly Act currently does not provide for any restrictions on demos around schools. The protection zones for crime hotspots provided for in the security police law (in Linz, for example, the Hinsenkampplatz underpass) are not a legal solution for incidents during demonstrations, says ministry spokesman Patrick Maierhofer. (staro)
Source: Nachrichten
