Austria’s Minister of Justice, Alma Zadic (Green party), has announced that the country will tighten it’s laws on the use of Nazi symbols.
This comes as a response to a growth of their use in recent years, with Zadic making particular reference to their appearance at anti-vaccination protests. People were seen attending these protests with stylised yellow stars with the inscription “unvaccinated” sometimes written underneath.
ORF reported that Zadic has announced that her ministry had been working with a number of civil society groups such as the Documentation Archive of Austrian Resistance (DÖW), the Jewish Community (IKG) Vienna and the Mauthausen Committee.
The minister will present a report to the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, within which are various policy proposals aimed at tackling the issue.
One proposal is greater punishment for the use of Nazi memorabilia. In future, if you are convicted under the Prohibition Act, you will automatically lose your job if you work in the public sector. This follows on from a controversy in which a member of the army was not fired even after he posed in an SS uniform.
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