Police Accused of Ignoring Neo-Nazi Attack
Viennese police officers are facing jail over failing to help a retired politician after he was assaulted by a right-wing mob.
Albrecht Konecny, the former head of the Social Democrats’ (SPÖ) delegation in the federal council (Bundesrat), said a group of policemen were watching on as he was beaten up on his way home from a street event against xenophobia and fascism.
Konecny attended an event organised by several human rights organisations and non-government organisations (NGOs) last month. Representatives of the Jewish Community in Vienna (IKG), Austrian unionists, the Austrian Green Party and students also attended by gathering in Vienna’s Innere Stadt district last month.
They also came together to commemorate the victims of the Nazis’ killings at the death and slave labour camp of Auschwitz. The open air event took place on the same day as a ball co-organised by student fraternities with a right-wing extremist background. NGOs were outraged that this year’s Viennese Corporations Ball was staged on the international Auschwitz concentration camp commemoration day. Organisers of the ball - which was attended Front National (FN) chairwomen Marine Le Pen and Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) leader Heinz-Christian Strache - claimed that this was pure coincidence.