A record of reported racist incidents, more than ever before, was recorded in 2020 in Austria. According to experts, in recent years such cases are increasingly reported in the country.
The Austrian anti-racist organization “Courage and Opinion” (ZARA) announced today the particularly large increase in the reported racist incidents, stating that last year a total of 3,039 people who had experienced or perceived racism addressed it.
Compared to 2019, this is an increase of 1,089 cases. 24% of the total complaints concerned racism based on skin color. A large number, 2,148, double that in 2019, concerned cybercrime.
The Organization considers that the increased numbers are not due to the fact that incitement to racism, insults or verbal abuse has increased in absolute numbers, but much more to the fact that has increased the intention of people to no longer tolerate hatred and aggravation in everyday life and the Internet, but to denounce them.
As the director of ZARA Caroline Kersbaumer pointed out, during today’s presentation of the exhibition in Vienna “Racism 2020 “, the numbers do not necessarily show an increase in racism in the country, but” we would say that awareness has increased “.
He cited the coronavirus pandemic and the “Black Lives Matter” Movement as possible causes, as well as the terrorist attack in the center of Vienna on November 2, 2020 with four dead and 23 wounded, according to the Athens News Agency.
He speculates that the reason for the sharp rise in cybercrime reports is that life has shifted even further on the Internet due to the pandemic. Such incidents can also be reported relatively easily, the issue of “hate on the Internet” was also “very present” in 2020 in the traditional media and social media, which raises awareness.
The forms of racism
A quarter of reports of racism in 2020 concerned racism, which was explicitly directed against black or colored people because of the color of their skin, and this form of racism was particularly prominent in the world of work, stressed during the presentation of the Exhibition by Dilber Bicme, the head of the counseling centers of the ZARA organization.
THE anti-Muslim racism was a quarter of all reports the organization received in 2020, and that corresponds to a doubling compared to 2019, said the organization’s co-director Barbara Ligl, noting that an increase was recorded especially after the terrorist attack in Vienna last November.
Cases of anti-Muslim racism often involved women who were considered Muslim because of their appearance (eg wearing a headscarf).
Many have contacted the organization for the first time, but have been affected by racist incidents several times before, and it is possible that the cases documented by ZARA show only a small part of the incidents.
As stressed during the presentation of the Report “Racism 2020”, the anti-racist organization “Courage of Opinion and Anti-Racism Project” (ZARA) now expects rapid steps in terms of policy.
The time is now “more than ripe” for the implementation of a national action plan against racism, which was announced in the government program of the coalition government of Chancellor Sebastian Kurtz and the Greens (which took office in January 2020) .
This plan should aim to combat all forms of racism equally, and access to justice should also be strengthened for those who complain of possible police misconduct.
As Barbara Ligl pointed out, the fact that last year should be used the “Black Lives Matter” Movement increased the willingness of many people to address the issue of racism, and therefore the organization supports the referendum “Black Voices”, whose central demand is the National Action Plan against Racism.
The anti-racist organization ZARA has been recording for years an increase in racist incidents on the internet, and, for example, out of the total of 2,000 incidents reported in 2019, three out of five involved the internet.
The organization considers that there is a large number of racist incidents that are not reported, especially in relation to the police, as, as it points out, there is a great delay in people reporting them – due to the fear of consequences.
According to a recent survey by the Vienna-based European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, only 14% of all racist incidents are reported.
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