TerrorismAustria investigates ties between NZ terrorist and Austrian populist, far-right movement

Austrian Identitarian Movement rally in Vienna displaying the identitarian banner // Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said on Wednesday that the Austrian security services were investigating possible connections between Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch terrorist, and the Austrian Identitarian Movement, a far-right, racist, anti-immigration party on the fringes of Austrian politics.

Tarrant, who killed fifty people in two mosques in New Zealand earlier this month, donated $1,700 to the  Identitarian Movement in early 2018.

Austrian prosecutors said the donation is now the subject of a terrorism investigation.

Al Jazeera reports that the Austrian police raided the home of the Movement’s leader Martin Sellner on Monday, as part of an investigation into Sellner’s possible “establishment of or membership in a terrorist organization,” prosecutors said.

Seller, in an online video, denied links to Tarrant, but reiterated his racist message. “I have nothing to do with this terrorist attack. I will pass on the sum to a charitable organization,” Sellner said. He then vowed to continue fighting against the “great replacement,” the conspiracy theory that non-European and Muslim migrants will become the majority population in Europe.

Tarrant’s manifesto was also titled “The Great Replacement.”

Sellner insisted he did not know the terrorist suspect and his only contact was a standard thank-you email following his donation. Tarrant visited Austria as part of his travels before the attack.

The Austrian authorities said the value of Tarrant’s donation value was significant compared to standard donations to the group.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz tweeted: “Any connection between the Christchurch attacker and members of the Identitarians in Austria needs to be comprehensively and ruthlessly investigated.”

“It is important that the independent justice system can use all necessary means and resources to conduct its investigation together with the security services and expose these networks,” he said. “There needs to be total clarity about all extremist activities.”

Kurz said Austria was looking into dissolving the Identitarian Movement.

“Our position on this is very clear, no kind of extremism whatsoever - whether it’s radical Islamists or right-wing extremist fanatics - has any place in our society,” Kurz said.

Kurz is the leader of the conservative Austrian Freedom Party (Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs, or FPÖ). After his party won the fall 2017 parliamentary election, he was criticized for forming a coalition with the populist, far-right Austrian People’s Party (Österreichische Volkspartei, or ÖVP), and appointing the ÖVP leader, Heinz-Christian Strache, as vice-chancellor.

As is the case with the AfD in Germany, the ÖVP, led until 2008 by the charismatic Jörg Haider, is a coalition of far-right populists, nationalists, and anti-immigration activists – but with a considerable presence of neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers, and skinheads in its ranks.

The Austrian media has produced a Twitter posting by Strache from 18 April 2016, expressing his support for the Identitarian Movement. Commenting on news reports highlighting the Movement’s extremist and violent elements, Strache tweeted: “Die Identitären sind eine partei unabhängige nicht-linke Bürgerbewegung, welche ihren friedlichen Aktionismus… von den Linken entiehlnt haben. Sie sind quasi junge Aktivisten einer nicht-linken Zivilgeschellschaft” (The identities are a party-independent, non-left-wing civic movement, which have their peaceful activism … borrowed from the left. They are quasi young activists of a non-left civil society).

Strache has since deleted the tweet.