Strengthen its efforts to combat acts or advocacy of racial or religious hatred, including consider adopting a national plan of action against racism
Proponent:
The 2020 EU Action Plan against Racism calls on the member states to draw up National Action Plans against Racism by the end of 2022. In Austria, the Federal Minister for Women, Family, Integration and Media in the Federal Chancellery is responsible for drawing up the National Action Plan against Racism and Discrimination. This National Action Plan is also anchored in the current government programme (EU Action Plan against Racism 2020: https://ec.europa.eu/migrant-integration/library-document/union-equality-eu-anti-racism-action-plan-2020-2025_en). Austria has also referred to the planned National Action Plan against Racism in various other recommendations regarding the implementation and promotion of measures to combat racism, discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance. This shows its particular importance. Contrary to this assurance and contrary to the agreement in the last government programme, no national action plan to combat racism was adopted and no significant other programmes in the area of anti-racism work were implemented, with the exception of the area of anti-Semitism. Racism remains a serious social problem in Austria. The latest report by SOS Mitmensch and other studies show that racist discrimination and hate crimes are on the rise. Anti-Muslim racism in particular has increased in recent years, partly fuelled by political rhetoric and campaigns targeting Muslim communities. Anti-Muslim hate crimes are common and are often supported by certain political groups. In 2023, the Documentation Centre on Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Racism recorded a total of 1522 racist attacks against Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. Compared to the previous year, 263 more cases were reported to us offline, which represents an increase of over 100 per cent of active case reports. The report shows a striking increase in case reports from the education sector. See report: here).
Austria has various laws in place to combat racism, including the Prohibition Act and the Equal Treatment Act. However, these legal frameworks are not always applied consistently, leading to calls for stronger policy measures and more rigorous enforcement of existing laws. Education and awareness-raising measures are also crucial to raise awareness of racial discrimination in the population and bring about long-term change (see SOS-Mitmensch report: https://www.sosmitmensch.at/site/momagazin/alleausgaben/7/article/395.html&ts=1720702499859).
ZARA’s report for the year 2023 provides a comprehensive overview of the extent and various forms of racism in Austria. A total of 1302 reports were documented and processed, almost 60% of which concerned online racism. This underlines the importance of digital platforms as a place for racist incidents, which can often be documented and reported using simple screenshots. The public sphere and the goods/services sector were particularly affected, with 58.2% and 15.9% of reports respectively. State authorities and institutions were involved in 11% of cases, while racist incidents in the police were only formally complained about in 4 out of 58 cases. In most of the other cases, those affected sought support from ZARA through counselling sessions and legal advice. A significant number (almost 78%) of reports came from witnesses, while 22% were submitted by those directly affected. The report also criticises the lack of implementation of a National Action Plan against Racism in Austria, although the need for structural change and combating institutional racism is obvious. There are still challenges in dealing with racism in Austria and the need for social support and structural changes to effectively address these issues (see Racism Report 2023, March 2024 edition: https://assets.zara.or.at/media/rassismusreport/ZARA_RassismusReport_2023_DE.pdf). As part of the Government Plan 2025-2029, the federal government is pursuing this goal through close cooperation with all stakeholders (see Government Plan 2ß025-2029: https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/bundeskanzleramt/die-bundesregierung/regierungsdokumente.html).According to the ZARA Racism Report 2023, people with migration experience, especially from African or Asian countries, are disproportionately affected by discrimination. This discrimination manifests itself in various areas of life, including the labour market, education and access to public services (see ZARA Report 2023: https://assets.zara.or.at/media/rassismusreport/ZARA_RassismusReport_2023_DE.pdf). The ECRI report by the Ombud for Equal Treatment emphasises that despite progress in the legal framework to combat discrimination, practical implementation is often inadequate. To meet these challenges, comprehensive measures are needed to promote equal treatment and combat racism. This includes both political initiatives and social efforts to raise awareness and education. A large number of measures have been taken since 2021 to combat all forms of antisemitism. A central coordination centre for the topic of anti-Semitism has been set up at the Federal Chancellery and a national strategy against anti-Semitism has been published (see https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/dam/jcr:8bd2975f-0483-4e74-abd9-d66446195d7c/antisemitismusstrategie.pdf). Even though the position has now been downgraded to a department in the Policy Section, it still exists in principle. Two implementation reports are available (for 2021 and 2022). For the education sector, a strategy paper on the „Prevention of antisemitism through education“ was developed in 2022, which contains recommendations for the implementation of the National Strategy against Antisemitism for the Austrian education administration and teacher training institutions (see: https://oead.at/fileadmin/Dokumente/oead.at/KIM/Downloadcenter/OeAD_E.AT_Strategiepapier_FIN_01.pdf). These recommendations were discussed at the symposium on „Preventing antisemitism through education“ in September 2022. In 2022, the National Forum against Antisemitism was also established to pool knowledge, combat antisemitism and promote Jewish life in Austria. The body is made up of representatives from the federal government, the provinces, municipalities, social partners, academia, religious communities, Jewish museums and civil society. A working group on the documentation of anti-Semitic incidents was also established with the aim of learning from the experiences of other organisations that already document racist, anti-Semitic, etc. incidents. The aim is to learn from the experiences of other organisations already documenting racist, anti-Semitic incidents in order to set up an anti-Semitism documentation centre that meets current requirements. Parliament also commissioned a study on anti-Semitism in Austria, which was presented in April 2023 (see https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/fachinfos/publikationen/Langbericht-Antisemitismus-2022-Oesterreichweite-Ergebnisse.pdf). While there are political strategies against anti-Semitism, there is no comparable approach to anti-Muslim racism. Instead, measures are taken that lead to prejudgements of people perceived as Muslim. The establishment of the Documentation Centre for Political Islam and Operation Luxor reinforce a general suspicion of Muslims and lead to people withdrawing from social discourse, a reduction in diversity of opinion and restrictions on participation. Freedom of opinion, freedom of the press, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly can be restricted on the basis of membership of a particular group, which has a negative impact on basic democratic principles (website of the Federal Chancellery – Documentation Centre for Political Islam: https://www.bundeskanzleramt.gv.at/bundeskanzleramt/nachrichten-der-bundesregierung/2020/integrationsministerin-raab-dokumentationsstelle-politischer-islam-nimmt-arbeit-auf.html). Regarding hate speech on the internet, the Hate on the Net Act was introduced to help victims of online hate, including group-focused misanthropy (HiNBG see: https://www.ris.bka.gv.at/Dokumente/BgblAuth/BGBLA_2020_I_148/BGBLA_2020_I_148.html).
