Rossauer Lände: blockade of the sit-in caused miles of traffic jam in Vienna

A sit-in against the deportation of rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan caused a three-kilometer traffic jam on one of Vienna’s most important thoroughfares on Tuesday afternoon. As announced by an ÖAMTC spokesperson for the APA, the traffic jam traced from Rossauer Lände in Vienna-Alsergrund via the north bridge to the Danube river highway (A22). According to the police, 23 people had blocked the Rossauer Lände police detention center.

According to ÖAMTC, the traffic jam was slowly resolved in the afternoon, and there was also a formation of columns in the direction of the Währinger belt and on Alserbachstrasse. The Friedensbrücke was also closed for “more than two hours”.

The “spontaneous demonstration” lasted from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and was then “declared dissolved,” a Vienna police spokesman told the APA upon request. 21 people were pulled off the road. Two people who had climbed on utility poles had been abducted by WEGA officials. The protesters behaved cooperatively, there were no injuries or criminal charges. But all would be denounced for violating the assembly law because the demonstration was not registered.

The protest could not prevent deportations. Ten people were taken to Vienna’s Schwechat Airport as scheduled to be deported from there to Afghanistan on Tuesday, police confirmed. According to the representation of opponents of deportations, people who fled the country’s political or religious persecution are in danger of death.

The security situation in Afghanistan is extremely fragile. Although peace talks are currently underway between the Afghan government and the radical Islamic Taliban, violent incidents continue. Many of these are also perpetrated by the ISIS militia, which is trying to break the security vacuum created by the planned US withdrawal. It was only on Tuesday that Kabul Deputy Governor Mahbubullah Mohebi was killed in a bomb attack in the Afghan capital.