Awareness of right-wing extremism
New, explosive brochure "Many individual cases = one pattern"
In May 2019, the so called "Ibiza affair" caused a sudden end for the coalition government of the ÖVP and FPÖ. However, in the weeks and months before, the individual cases had burdened the coalition increasingly. After the end of the coalition, ÖVP Federal Party Chairman Sebastian Kurz complained that they had "drained a lot of my strength".
On two occasions, the Mauthausen Committee Austria had already researched the extreme right-wing activities of FPÖ politicians and presented them in a chronological way. The documentation "Nothing but individual cases?" had been published before the parliamentary elections in fall 2017. It received a strong response. Since then, the term "individual cases" had become commonplace for describing the continuous anti-democratic activities of the FPÖ.
The sequel followed with the publication of "Individual cases and repeat offenders" in June 2018. It proved that the FPÖ even as a governing party did not become more moderate. For the period since the beginning of 2013, i.e. for five and a half years, the documentation thus comprised a total of 106 extreme right-wing activities.
With this third documentation, the Mauthausen Committee investigates the most recent individual cases - dating from June 2018 until the end of July 2019. The new documentation clearly demonstrates that the several individual cases have a pattern in common. And it makes clear what this pattern looks like.
In addition, it addresses an important question: Could the FPÖ be capable of governing? Or does it give reason to assume that the FPÖ as a ruling party would continue to cause serious damage with its extreme right-wing activities?
The new documentation "Many individual cases = one pattern" provides a clear answer.
Across Austria, in recent years the number of extreme right-wing and racist offences has risen dramatically. In a single year, the number of extreme right-wing and racist offences rose by 50%, from 750 (2014) to 1156 (2015). The continuous rise in the number of hate crimes began in 2005; the number then was 209. In the past ten years, this number rose by a factor of 5.5. Further, these crimes have become more brutal and violent.
Generally, extreme-right activities, groups, movements, organizations, etc. target people whom they define in terms of various attributes such as skin color, physique, ethnic origin, or their world-view, religious or sexual orientation. In other words, they target people who deviate from what the extremists consider to be the norm and whom they discriminate against as minorities with the goal of persecuting or even eliminating them. Simultaneously, right-wing extremists attempt to weaken or disable organizations, institutions and activists who advocate comprehensive integration, the creation of more options for democratic participation, and sociopolitical emancipation of all people. The right-wing scene has undergone changes over many years. It is not always easy to see who is a member of this scene. Their clothing has become cooler, with fashionable accessories and mainstream products instead of hooligan outfits. Their clothes bear youth-culture codes whose meaning is normally known only within the scene and serves to signal to others within the scene.
Mauthausen Committee Austria has been engaged for many years on a broad base against right-wing extremism by monitoring, informing, documenting and filing criminal charges.