Asylum seekers and refugees in Austria
Recent stories
Lawyers put under investigation
Two radical lawyers, Georg Buerstmayr and Nadja Lorenz, who give legal assistance to asylum seekers, and family of Cheibani Wague who was killed in police custody, have been put under investigation by interior minister Strasser (ÖVP).
1 December 2004 (99 words)
Traiskirchen mayor campaigns against refugee hostel
Fritz Knotzer, the Social Democratic mayor of Traiskirchen has handed to the interior minister a petition of 21,000 signatures against the local refugee hostel.
1 December 2004 (84 words)
Strasser links crime to asylum
Interior minister Strasser (ÖVP) says that asylum seekers are increasingly responsible for crimes and such people are 'a threat to Austria' and 'not needed' and should be deported.
1 December 2004 (109 words)
ÖVP leadership shows its anti-asylum colours
Herwig van Staa, a senior conservative (ÖVP) government minister in south Tyrol is demanding that 'sharper measures' be taken against refugees and proposes that immigrants be accommodated in 'an internment facility'.
28 June 2004 (111 words)
Scheme for Iranians to migrate to US effectively abandoned
The noborder network has drawn attention to the increasingly desperate situation of Iranian asylum seekers from religious minorities who were previously supported by the Hebrew Immigration Assistance Service (HIAS) in Vienna in their bid to gain entry to the US.
1 December 2002 (161 words)
Hundreds evicted as safe-country list introduced
On October 1, the government introduced a 'safe country' list, which means that asylum seekers from Russia, Armenia, Turkey, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Yugoslavia and Nigeria undergo a fast-track procedure to verify their claims.
29 October 2002 (455 words)
Kosovo repatriation plan criticised
Human rights groups have disputed that a repatriation plan for Kosovan asylum seekers is voluntary.
4 October 2002 (49 words)
Hercules aircraft to be used for deportations
From December, the defence ministry will be offering new Hercules transport aircraft to fly asylum seekers back to their country of origin when their applications for asylum are rejected.
4 October 2002 (41 words)
Vienna: claims that identity check leads to violence and racial abuse
Police are investigating an incident in which a 25-year-old Congolese national, Kambowa Mutomba, alleges that he was ill-treated and racially abused by police officers.
1 September 2002 (140 words)
Three police officers cleared of Marcus Omofuma killing
On 15 April, three years after the death during deportation of the 25-year-old Nigerian asylum seeker Marcus Omofuma, three police officers from the Viennese unit of the foreigners' police were found not guilty of 'torture of a prisoner resulting in death' but guilty of the lesser charge of 'negligent manslaughter in particularly dangerous conditions'.
1 June 2002 (123 words)
Inquiry into company that exploited illegals launched
An inquiry has been launched into an Austrian freight firm suspected of illegally employing hundreds of eastern European drivers in slave-like conditions.
6 February 2002 (91 words)
Marcus Omofuma - still no justice
In February, three police officers suspended after the deportation death of Marcus Omofuma on 1 May 1999 (see Bulletins 31 and 32) were allowed to return to work despite the fact that disciplinary proceedings are still ongoing and a damning report was produced by an independent medical expert.
1 October 2001 (215 words)
Airlines' role in deportations challenged
After the death of Marcus Omofuma, new guidelines for the 'organisation and implementation of deportations by air' came into effect, stipulating that 'problem' deportations should be carried out via charter flights.
1 October 2001 (120 words)
Miscarriage of justice victim resists deportation
Austrian campaigners have highlighted the wrongful imprisonment of the Nigerian Anthony Onyeij and the fact that the authorities, rather than offer him compensation for his ordeal, moved to immediately deport him.
1 October 2001 (237 words)
Asylum prison complex extended
The interior minister Ernst Strasser has said that a new 'open detention centre' for foreign deportees at Linz has been so successful that similar projects will be started in other Austrian cities, with Innsbruck and Bregenz prioritised.
1 October 2001 (145 words)
Chinese victims murdered by smugglers
Austrian-Hungarian border police are investigating the murders of two Chinese citizens killed with machetes after they failed to pay those who smuggled them into Austria from Hungary.
1 October 2001 (38 words)
Vienna municipal election - FPÖ campaign characterised by xenophobia
While the FPÖ's share of the vote plummeted in the Vienna March 25 municipal election, human rights organisations and Jewish community groups pointed to a worsening climate of racial intolerance following the FPÖ's xenophobic campaign.
1 April 2001 (719 words)
Traiskirchen - drugs raid on asylum hostel criticised
A police drugs raid on 17 January , involving 130 officers, on a residence for asylum seekers in Traiskirchen, Lower Austria, has been criticised by AI as 'disproportionately targeting the entire block of a residence, which was largely non-Caucasian, in order to apprehend a small number of possible drug users and drug dealers'.
1 January 2001 (235 words)
No action on Omofuma complaint
Thomas Prader, solicitor for the daughter of the Nigerian asylum-seeker Marcus Omofuma who died on 1 May 1999 during a deportation attempt is concerned about the way in which a complaint he has made against the police is being dealt with.
1 August 2000 (102 words)
Four drown in Donau river
The interior minister proposed a clamp down on exploitative traffickers after four people drowned in the river Donau on 11 March attempting to enter Austria on a rubber dinghy which capsized. One man survived.
1 August 2000 (45 words)
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