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Demonstrators hold up torches and banners at a protest against the Austrian Corona measures in Vienna
Photo: Vadim Ghirda / dpa
Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on Saturday in Vienna against the government's Corona measures - among them people with Nazi symbols and anti-Semitic signs.
Austria's Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) is now warning against further radicalization of opponents of the corona measures.
That was his impression due to the controls of the 2G rule and incidents around the demonstration in Vienna, said Nehammer.
A concrete example of the willingness to use violence is an arson attack on a police car in Linz.
The two suspects then admitted that they wanted to kill the two police officers who had previously checked them.
"That is a degree of radicalization that is in no way acceptable," said Nehammer.
There are death threats against the Chancellor and the Minister of Health.
"Well-known neo-Nazis and representatives of the new right-wing extremist scene"
At the demonstration, most people peacefully expressed their displeasure, but it also showed that "well-known neo-Nazis and representatives of the new right-wing extremist scene" were trying to heat up the mood.
One of the incidents was the trivialization of the Holocaust, in which demonstrators had marked themselves as "not vaccinated" with a Jewish star.
In addition, Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg had been compared with the concentration camp doctor Josef Mengele.
Mengele had killed many Jews through medical experiments during the Nazi regime.
In Austria the pressure on unvaccinated people is enormous. There is a 3G rule in the workplace, a 2G rule that excludes unvaccinated people from large parts of public life, as well as a lockdown for everyone from Monday. While this measure is to end on December 13th for vaccinated and convalescent people, it will continue to apply indefinitely to unvaccinated people. The country is suffering from a massive corona wave with a seven-day incidence of well over 1,000 cases per 100,000 population.
Around 35,000 people gathered at the large demonstration in Vienna from Saturday afternoon.
The demonstrators whistled, drummed and carried Austrian national flags or flags and posters with slogans such as "No to vaccination", "Enough is enough" and "Down with the fascist dictatorship".
According to the police, fewer than ten people were arrested, among other things for violating corona measures or for violating the ban on Nazi symbols.
FPÖ speaks of a "dictatorship"
The right-wing populist party FPÖ, which is skeptical of corona vaccinations, had called for the demo.
She criticized the Austrian government for the new, tougher measures.
FPÖ party leader Herbert Kickl said: "As of today Austria is a dictatorship." Other vaccination-critical groups had also called for the protests.
Kickl himself was unable to take part due to a corona infection.
In Austria around 66 percent of the population are vaccinated against the coronavirus, which is one of the lowest rates in Western Europe.
The number of new infections is constantly increasing.
"Despite months of persuasion, we did not succeed in convincing enough people to get vaccinated," Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) justified the stricter measures on Friday.
mrc / dpa / Reuters
