In a move following the deadly attack in its capital city, Vienna, the Austrian Government has agreed to undertake several measures to “protect their country”.
The list of methods to be adopted for the same include the right of the officials to give a life imprisonment punishment to those who are found guilty of involving in “terror” activities, surveillance of individuals through electronic and digital means who were earlier put behind the bars for conviction of terrorism-concerned offences and later released and terming people who are religiously encouraged to execute politically extreme deeds as criminals.
Along with this, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz stated the government’s plans of closing associations and mosques that promote “radicalization” and the power rested in general people to report any such violent acts, even those they suspect, on an online site. He said that a central register of imams is also underway to be formed where the imams of all mosques will be enlisted.
After completing a cabinet meeting, the chancellor told the media, “In the fight against political Islam – the ideological basis behind it – we are going to create a criminal offense called ‘political Islam’ in order to be able to move against those who aren’t terrorists but are preparing the ground for it.”
Stringent measures are going to be pulled up for people who have already completed their sentence for the said crimes but cannot yet be considered as “fully de-radicalized”. For such individuals, he said, the government will make all attempts to “lock them up in order to protect the public”. Moreover, a “preventive detention” will also be made for those convicted of terror activities.
These measures are going to be discussed in the parliament in December to call for the voting.
The chancellor added in his list of strict proposals that those individuals released recently will be monitored through the utilization of a digital ankle bracelet or a wristband by which their activities can be tracked. However, he did not mention as to when this specific measure or even preventive detention would be used.
When it previously worked as an opponent, the Green party would slam the notion of preventive detention, although it is now in alliance with Kurz’s People’s Party (OeVP).
These measures were brought up after the attack of November 2nd when a man killed four people in Austria’s Vienna city after which the police shot him dead. The attack resulted in twenty getting injured, including a cop.
The suspect was identified as Kujtim Fejzulai, a 20-year-old dual nationality holder of Austria and North Macedonia. He had earlier been convicted for his attempts to join ISIS in Syria. However, he was later released in December in this case.
Now, the Austrian authorities have set up a probe to find the reason of Fejzulai not being under the direct monitoring of the government, even when the Slovakian officials had hinted them that the suspect had tried to buy ammo from a Bratislava store in July.
After this, the government began planning of ways to tackle down the attackers, one of which also includes the decision of snatching the Austrian citizenship from terror convicted individuals who hold dual nationality.
As part of the investigation, around 1000 police and intelligence service officials raided houses, associations and companies of people linked to Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. Through this, the authorities in the 4 regions of the country took in millions of euros in cash.
However, the prosecutors stressed that the raids did not relate to the past week’s attack but rather associated to the probe that was due since over a year.
Vienna’s attack was after the incident in Nice of France where four people were murdered by a knife-bearer.
Following this, the French government has started shutting down mosques and religious places along with the hunt of organizations, which it believes is propagating hate.
