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Racism Report 2004 Annual Reports of various Organisations Page 47
officer of a force of eight police present at the station joins him and the other officer. Without any apparent reason
Mr. S. is hand-cuffed and kicked to the ground. Mr. S. cries: “I’m ill. Heart problems.” One of the officers says:
“Better watch out or else he’ll have a heart attack” to which another one replies: “It’ll be one less then.” While Mr.
S. is dragged to the police car he falls unconscious. When he comes to, he finds himself at the police station. He
is completely undressed and pushed to the floor. When he no longer reacts someone says: “Maybe he’s swallowed
drugs.” After a medical check in which not a trace of drugs is found the doctor diagnoses acute severe depression.
Mr. S. is transferred to a hospital where he’s kept for a week and treated for shock symptoms. After his release he
has to continue treatment as an outpatient for another two months. Mr. S. files a report against the officers which
is found insufficient and turned down. He himself is, however, fined with an administrative fine for unruly behaviour
in public and a report is made against him for civil disobedience. He is found guilty.
Mr. O., a 19 year old asylum seeker from Nigeria has lived in Vienna since February 2002. After a visit
to a discotheque in 2003 he is shot and injured by a “madman” in the centre of Vienna. To remove
the bullet from his abdomen he has to undergo complex surgery. To the first hearing in court he is still summoned
as a witness. By the time of the final hearing in May 2004, however, he is summoned as the accused charged with
having sold drugs to the man who shot him. The original circumstances are no longer investigated and the attacker
is no longer charged. Four drug addicts incriminate Mr. O. who as he keeps reaffirming would not recognise him in
an identity parade. The court finds him guilty. Next he receives an official notification by the alien police informing
him that—under the assumption that his continued presence in Austria would present a danger to the public peace,
order and safety—he was banned from residency in the country for a period of ten years. Appeals are made against
both the verdict and the ban on residency. In the court of appeals the public prosecutor and the judge both find that
the accusations made against Mr. O. are completely unjustified and the case is dismissed.
Mr. N. from Nigeria served a prison sentence at the prison Stein in Krems. On August 19, 2004, a fight
broke out between Mr. N. who at the time received psychiatric treatment and another inmate, Mr. W.
An officer intervened and sent both of them back to their cells. Next a commando of eight officers in full equipment
stormed into Mr. N’s cell who instinctively reached out for a kitchen knife. The officers used pepper spray against
him and CN gas which in scientific literature is described as very toxic and likely to kill in closed rooms. The officers
beat N. using their fists and sticks and leaving him severely injured. They put hand-cuffs on him, shackled his feet
and took him to another cell in the “cellar” where they continued to beat him. The doctor on duty eventually gave
him an injection (Valium). Then all went quiet in the cell until an emergency doctor is called and found the inmate
dead. Karin Miklautsch, the Minister of Justice, praised the officers for their “courageous” intervention and expressed
her full sympathy for the precarious situation they were in—Mr. N. who was HIV-positive had cut himself and eleven
of the fifteen officers assaulting him had come into contact with his blood.
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