DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
Vandals damaged or destroyed dozens of graves belonging to Muslims in the Austrian city of Graz, heightening tensions in the southern city where a local politician made disparaging comments about Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
Police in Graz, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Vienna, said about 60 gravestones belonging to Muslims were found overturned or broken in the central cemetery, but said it was unclear when the vandalism took place.
Officials said they could not rule out the possibility that extreme-right groups active in the city may have been behind the attack.
Tensions have risen in Graz since a local female politician from the right-wing Freedom Party disparaged the Prophet Muhammad, calling him a "child molester" who wrote the Quran during "fits of epilepsy."
Many Muslims stayed away from recent protests organized in Graz to support Palestinians suffering under a punishing Israeli blockade, fearing tensions could spill over into violence so soon after the comments by Freedom Party (FP) politician Susanne Winter, Austrian newspaper Wiener Zeitung said on Jan. 26.
Mainstream political parties and many prominent Austrians -- including President Heinz Fischer -- condemned Winter’s remarks. The Graz public prosecutor is investigating her by for possible violation of the law in making the comments.
Seeking to defuse tensions, the new FP party leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, said that "of course Mohammed was not a child abuser", the Austrian news agency APA reported on Jan. 17.
Comments by Winter, a 50-year-old lawyer and FP's top candidate in city elections, had been "unfortunate and misunderstandable", Strache said, but were meant to spotlight contemporary problems that exist in Vienna. |
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Party platform According to the proposed FP program, to be voted on later this year, there should be bans on minarets and Muslim headscarves in public buildings, the Vienna newspaper Kurier reported.
Foreigners granted Austrian citizenship who later commit an offence should be stripped of their citizenship.
Foreigners should also be excluded from social and unemployment insurance and be given "guest-worker insurance" instead, the party's proposed platform says.
A separate "aliens police" should be established to "firmly repatriate" foreigners "committing unlawful acts, misusing the social system, whose asylum applications are rejected, and for whom there are no flats or jobs".
In the 2006 general election, the Freedom Party won 13 per cent of vote. At a rally in January, the former party leader, Jörg Haider, also made anti-Islamic remarks.
He welcomed his supporters with the greeting "Grüss Gott" or "God bless you" before adding: "Fortunately, we are still able to say Grüss Gott rather than 'Allah is mighty'."
According to 2001 census figures, Austria's Muslim population stood at around 4.1% of the total population of 8.2 million people with Turks making up the biggest single ethnic minority.
About 78% of Austrians are Catholic. Immigration during the last decades has increased the percentage of Muslims. |
