Policing and criminal justice system in Austria
Recent stories
New law aims to facilitate integration of Muslims
A new draft law (updating the 1912 law officially recognising Islam) will set up a college for the graduation of imams and lead to the employment of Muslim chaplains in the army, police and hospitals.
19 March 2006 (96 words)
Teaching of Islam in school
The Catholic Church in Upper Austria has decided to allow the teaching of Islam in one of its fifty-five affiliated schools.
19 March 2006 (51 words)
New tests for naturalisation and citizenship questioned
A draft new naturalisation law has established a restriction on naturalisation whereby parents gaining citizenship cannot automatically extend this to the rest of the family, even when their children have secure residence status.
1 January 2006 (283 words)
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)
Involvement of army in prisons
Karin Miklautsch (ÖVP) the new minister of justice has suggested that the army be deployed in prisons as it is temporarily on border control duties.
1 December 2004 (78 words)
Police fight guilty verdict in Cheibani Wague death
The court's decision was 'incomprehensible' - such was the reaction of police to the verdict of guilty in the first proceedings before the Independent Supreme Administrative Court in the death of the 33-year-old Mauretanian student Cheibani Wague.
1 February 2004 (172 words)
Romanian youth in adult prison claims rape
In 2002, the Austrian justice minister abolished the juvenile court.
1 September 2003 (86 words)
Vienna: questions raised after black death in custody
On 15 July, Cheibani Wague, a 33-year-old Mauritanian, died after police were called to a dispute at his workplace.
1 July 2003 (476 words)
AI documents degrading treatment
On 17 October 2002, Vienna's Independent Administrative Tribunal found that police had insulted and treated in a degrading way a human rights activist, Bulent Oztoplu, who is of Turkish origin.
17 June 2003 (123 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)
Developments in the case of Marcus Omofuma
On 22 October, the judicial authorities announced that the three policemen assigned to escort Omofuma (who died in a deportation attempt in May 1999) had been charged with 'torture' leading to death.
1 January 2002 (113 words)
Haider and the law
Court upholds case against Haider for trivialising Nazi crimes
1 January 2002 (224 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)
Vienna - three deaths in police custody
Following three deaths in the custody of the police in Vienna in May, attention has been focused on the government's tough new drugs policy, influenced by FPÖ electioneering around the slogan 'No mercy for drugs dealers'.
1 January 2001 (191 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)
Radio documents truth of Vienna drugs raids
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has named, Cornelia Krebs, an Austrian journalist on ORF broadcasting, as the winner of its radio category 'Prize 2000 - a celebration of tolerance and journalism' award.
1 January 2001 (694 words)
Vienna police officer assaulted minor
A Viennese police officer at Margareten police station has been accused of mistreating an 18-year-old detainee who was arrested during the course of a police anti-drugs operation in September 1999.
1 January 2001 (62 words)
Turkish minor traumatised by police arrest
A 13-year-old boy of Turkish origin has suffered from anxiety and sleepless nights after allegedly being ill-treated by a police officer in Neunkirchen on New Year's Eve.
1 January 2001 (78 words)
Special squad targets democracy movement
When the new government was formed, anti-racist groups in Austria reported that a new police crack unit, the Special Operation Command (SEK), had been formed with the specific brief of keeping Austria's democracy movement under surveillance.
1 January 2001 (202 words)
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