The government bans identity symbols

On Wednesday, the government presented a first package of measures against terrorism as a measure after the terrorist attack in Vienna.

AUSTRIA. On Wednesday, after the Council of Ministers, the government presented the most important pillars of the antiterrorist package. The package includes numerous projects: for example, the symbols law was reformed so that the symbols of the far-right Identity Movement and those of some Islamist organizations can be banned, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) said after the Council of Ministers . Additionally, Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) and Justice Minister Alma Zadic (Greens) announced more electronic surveillance.

The anti-terror package contains the following measures:

• Creation of a new criminal offense: The central component of the federal government’s new anti-terror package is the creation of a separate criminal offense to combat political Islam. The new paragraph 247b “Extremist religiously motivated association” of the Penal Code is directed against organizations that fight against the democratic constitutional order and want to replace it with a religiously based social and state order (like Sharia). According to the Penal Code, anyone who establishes such an association, is a leader of such an association or participates in it or supports it in any other way, can now be sanctioned.

• Religiously motivated political extremism becomes an aggravating factor in criminal law: Furthermore, a new impediment is being introduced for extremist religiously motivated reasons. This should allow effective action against new forms of extremism.

• Radical mosques are closed: Changes to Islamic Law will create new legal bases to allow radical mosques to close more quickly and easily. Specifically, in the future, the Office of Cultural Affairs should react much faster, and in particularly serious cases, even without being asked to stop, and close the mosques.

• Introducing a magnet directory: Mosques and Imams must appear in a new directory. This directory will also include foreign imams and allows a transparent overview of which imam is preaching in which mosque, according to Integration Minister Susanne Raab (ÖVP). In this way, effective measures can be taken against mosques that provide a platform for hate preachers from abroad. There are also penalties for non-compliance.

• Stronger ban on foreign financing: The ban on foreign financing of mosques (Islam Law 2015) is now being tightened. In the future, the mosque institutions and the associations behind the mosques will be legally bound to submit all financial documents. Here, too, penalties are provided for non-compliance.

• Improved data exchange: In addition, adequate legal bases are created to improve the exchange of data and information between the security authorities and the cultural office to implement these measures.

The government announced the anti-terrorism package just a week after the Vienna bombing, in which an Islamist killed four bystanders on November 2.

For now, there is no preventive detention

For the time being, the law of accommodation of terrorist criminals was postponed in the implementation of the measures, known as preventive detention. Apparently, a corresponding measure will be included in a general reform of the implementation of measures that is planned for a long time.

Austria should get a magnet directory