The police will contact all mayors and MPs on legislative bodies over the next few days due to increasing threats. This was announced by Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) on Wednesday evening at a round table with the community leaders. In the last few weeks there have been more dangerous threats and attempted coercion against politicians – including marches in front of their homes. You won’t watch it, so Nehammer.
The focus should be on close networking between the police and mayors, emphasized the Deputy Director of the Federal Criminal Police Office, Manuel Scherscher. Affected local chiefs should document and secure threats. This often begins with hate postings, which are “anything but a peculiar offense”: “The anonymity of the Internet lets people feel inhibited, especially with behaviorally ingenious people.” One speaks here of offenses such as violations of the Prohibition Act, dangerous threats, coercion or hate speech.
Statements of this kind should not be taken lightly by the mayors, said Scherscher. “There’s only one way – and that leads to the police.” In addition, one could proceed according to civil law and work towards deletion on social media such as Facebook. At the community level, it is also important to appoint community councils responsible for security, to sit down with the police in advance and to draw up security concepts for institutions at risk.
Stefan Goertz, Professor of Security Policy at the Federal University of Applied Sciences in Lübeck (Germany), gave an example of the threats that mayors might face. These would begin with the use of aggressive rhetoric on social networks, during demos or by email or telephone, or with uninhibited language and threats. In a further stage there could be blockades or demos from hospitals, vaccination centers, schools or town halls, for example. Property damage to these facilities or in the private environment of mayors or doctors is also possible. The use of physical force would be very rare, but also possible. “But most of them will stick to verbal threats.”
“The mayors always get it,” said Nehammer. The aggressiveness is increasing – “it goes so far that mayors are intimidated or threatened because they speak out in favor of the vaccination or are committed to it”. It is indeed the essence of a democratic society to have different approaches to contain the pandemic and to articulate them publicly. “However, if red lines are crossed by threats or parades in front of the homes of mayors, we must protect our rule of law and those that support it and take consistent action against the criminals.”
“We protect ourselves in front of our mayors”, said also the Association of Municipalities President Alfred Riedl. “We can only defeat the virus if we stand together and stick together – on all levels.” Hiding attacks is exactly the wrong signal – rather, one has to look and support one another.
The new head of the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence Service (DSN), Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, found that many opponents of the measures were “overburdened” by the current situation, for example with childcare, often coupled with a refusal to vaccinate. If, for example, children were included in the planned mandatory vaccination, this would pose challenges for the protection of the Constitution. At the moment, the opponents of the measures would certainly represent the greatest threat in the republic.
Source From: Nachrichten
