Austrian of African origin subject to racist harassment
The NGO ZARA – Zivilcourage und Anti-Rassismus-Arbeit (ZARA) received the following complaint: "In July, Ms P., an Austrian, informs ZARA via telephone of the following incident: Her boyfriend is of African origin. Currently, he is performing his military service with the Austrian army. He is frequently subject to racist harassment by his fellow recruits. Among other things, he is labelled “N...” by one of his comrades, and there are allusions to the practices of the Ku-Klux-Klan, for example when some comrades put on white hoods with eye slits.
The army official responsible for complaints at the local barracks tells him that the abuse is not so grave and does nothing about it. Even when one of the recruits draws attention to himself by carrying out the Hitler salute, no countering measures are taken. The said recruit furthermore tries to raise suspicions of a criminal offence having been committed by the recruit of African origin in libellous intention by claiming that there is a smell of hashish in his room.
ZARA gives Ms P. legal information and urgently suggests that she recommend her boyfriend to direct his complaint directly to the Ministry of Defence, and to file a complaint for re-enactment of National-Socialist ideology with the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the Fight Against Terrorism (...). When Ms P. calls again, she informs ZARA that her boyfriend does not want to make any more complaints, but to suffer through his time of basic military service including all discriminatory acts by his comrades. He fears that his situation might worsen further because of a complaint. His initial complaints with superiors led to the extremities described above. Finally, Ms P. anonymously turns to the Federal Army’s complaints committee and subsequently does not get in touch with ZARA again." (ZARA Racism Report 2007, p. 44)
Source: http://www.zara.or.at/materialien/rassismus-report/racism-report-2007.pdf (2011-10-14)
