EUROPEAN RACE BULLETIN - Institute of Race Relations

a medieval synagogue, after years of wrangling and controversy.The FPÖ was noticeably, and thankfully, absent fromthe ceremony. (Guardian 26.10.00)Compensation fund agreedAustria and the US have agreed to set up a $380 millioncompensation fund for Nazi-era slave and forced labourers.The fund will be financed by the Austrian government and bybusinesses which profited from slave labour. (JewishChronicle 20.10.00)Will the FPÖ’s presence in the government influence policing inAustria?It is a well-known fact that the FPÖ enjoys a high-level of supportwithin police unions, but is this reflected in policing standards? TheIRR’s research indicates that the FPÖ’s extreme-Right policies arereflected in everyday policing priorities. Firstly, in the crackdown onpolitical dissent by a new police squad, the Special OperationCommand (SEK); and secondly in disproportionate and violentdrugs raids on asylum and migrants hostels where minimum safeguardsand checks on police powers have been flouted. There is particularconcern about the situation in Vienna where there werethree deaths in police and prison custody in the space of onemonth.PoliceSpecial squad targets democracy movementWhen the new government was formed, anti-racist groups inAustria reported that a new police crack unit, the SpecialOperation Command (SEK), had been formed with the specificbrief of keeping Austria’s democracy movement undersurveillance. Since then, there have been repeated calls forSEK to be disbanded. The Green Party held a press conferencewhere a video of SEK violence against demonstrators wasshown and there had been questions asked about the SEKshooting on 19 May of an unarmed Yugoslavian man.Allegations that the SEK’s commander, lieutenantRabensteiner, had been involved in a racist incident havealso been made.AI cites harassment of German anti-racistsAI reports that a group of anti-racist protesters fromGermany were detained and physically ill-treated by policeofficers in Vienna on 19 February 2000. Among other things,the officers have been accused of: kicking and punching thedemonstrators; bending their fingers back and pulling theirhair; destroying demonstrators’ mobile phones; confiscatingthe demonstrators’ shoes and telling them that if they tookpart in the demonstration that afternoon they would beautomatically arrested. (Evil Austria, ibid, AmnestyInternational: concerns in Europe, January-June 2000, AIIndex EUR -1/03/00)Vienna: three deaths in police custodyFollowing three deaths in the custody of the police in Viennain May, attention has been focused on the government’stough new drugs policy, influenced by FPÖ electioneeringaround the slogan ‘No mercy for drugs dealers’.Causes of death disputedOn 3 May, a 26-year-old man from Sierra Leone, Richard W,was found dead in the cell of a youth penal institution inVienna. The official autopsy report states that he died of a7drugs overdose, but there are claims that he was beaten bypolice.On 4 May, Slovakian, Lubinor B was found dead in apolice station in the department of Vienna. An interimautopsy report states that traces of drugs were found in hisurine. In both of these cases, campaigners have complainedof a government imposed news black-out on the release ofinformation as to the causes of the deaths.The third case, documented by AI, is that of Imre B, whowas shot dead by a police officer from the Special CriminalDeployment Group during a drugs raid on 19 May. (EvilAustria, AI Concerns in Europe , ibid )Traiskirchen: drugs raid on asylum hostel criticisedA police drugs raid on 17 January , involving 130 officers, ona residence for asylum seekers in Traiskirchen, Lower Austria,has been criticised by AI as ‘disproportionately targeting theentire block of a residence, which was largely non-Caucasian,in order to apprehend a small number of possible drug usersand drug dealers’. Some eighty residents were confined toparticular areas of the building while the building wassearched for four hours.Degrading internal body searchesDetails of the manner in which intimate body searches werecarried out paint an alarming picture of systematic humiliation.For instance, it has been alleged that:•some asylum seekers were ordered to remove all theirclothes and were allegedly subjected to internal bodysearches in front of residents as well as police officers. Onewoman was searched, both anally and vaginally, in a toilet,but the toilet door was left partially open and male policeofficers were located in an adjacent room.•internal body searches were carried out with the same pairof latex gloves, with no concern for the health of detainees.Arrests for minor offences onlyEventually, 15 detainees were arrested, reportedly for possessingsmall amounts of drugs. In response to AI’s criticisms,the Human Rights Advisory Council has recommendedthat in future large-scale anti-drugs police operations shouldinclude council members as observers. (AI Concerns inEurope, ibid)Radio documents truth of Vienna drugs raidsThe International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has named,Cornelia Krebs, an Austrian journalist on ORF broadcasting,as the winner of its radio category ‘Prize 2000: a celebrationof tolerance and journalism’ award. Broadcast on 6 October1999, her ‘Hostel under fire’ questions the motives for tworaids on refugee and migrant hostels in Vienna. Duringresearch into the local drug scene, Krebs interviewed localresidents, police and the hostel’s director, finally establishinga clearer picture of the circumstances that led up to thepolice drugs raid than that given by the police. ‘The broadcastshowed how prejudices and rumours come about’ and‘how rumours ... have real-life consequences’ concludes theIFJ jury.Refugee and migrant hostels targeted for drugs raidsThe documentary focused on raids on two hostels run bysocial services which took place towards the end ofSeptember 1999, and a further raid on a private flat belongingto an African couple. The first raid was on an asylum hos-IRR EUROPEAN RACE BULLETIN • NO 35 • DECEMBER 2000/ JANUARY 2001