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Demonstration of opponents of vaccination in Vienna in November 2021
Photo: Georg Hochmuth / dpa
General practitioner Lisa-Maria Kellermayr was found dead in her practice on Friday.
The competent public prosecutor's office in Wels ruled out third-party fault.
More is not yet known about the case, but there are countless, sometimes inflammatory comments on the case in lateral thinker groups on Telegram.
Since the news broke, the death has been a key issue there.
Some disparage Kellermayr's work as a doctor, others personally insult her and make them contemptible.
In an anti-vaccination group, for example, a user writes that there is no need to mourn Kellermayr because, after all, she vaccinated other people.
Elsewhere it is speculated without any evidence that the doctor herself could have died as a result of a vaccination.
When a Viennese lateral thinker group pointed out that death threats like the one Kellermayr received were unacceptable, they said: "What would you do if a doctor injected your child?" The same group later discussed taking up arms to get in self-defense.
Some of the members of the groups communicate anonymously, but others also use real names and a picture of their face.
On Twitter, the Berlin AfD MP Harald Laatsch described the doctor on Friday as a vaccination propagandist and wrote that she probably "didn't want to live with the heavy guilt anymore".
Months of death threats
Kellermayr received death threats from anti-vaccination campaigners for more than seven months before her death.
A suspicion also led to the right-wing extremist scene in Germany.
In the Austria podcast "Inside Austria" by SPIEGEL and "Standard", the doctor reported that she felt abandoned by the responsible police authorities.
So far, the authorities have not been able to determine who was behind the threatening letters.
Ultimately, Kellermayr was forced to temporarily close her practice.
The extremism expert Pia Lamberty criticized on Friday that "threats and violence from the conspiracy ideological right-wing extremist milieu" were hardly taken seriously.
Such underestimated aggression has existed throughout the pandemic, Lamberty said.
Politicians are dismayed
The Austrian Health Minister Johannes Rauch wrote on Twitter that he was deeply dismayed by the death.
“As a doctor, she has dedicated her life to the health and well-being of others.
Death threats against her and her employees were brutal reality,” said Rauch.
In a Twitter post on Friday, the Austrian Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen criticized the anti-vaccination campaign on the internet: "Let's stop this intimidating and scaring.
Hate and intolerance have no place in our Austria,” says Van der Bellen.
Rauch and Van der Bellen initially did not comment on Kellermayr's allegations that the police and investigators had not supported them enough.
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