The German student Windl, a member of the “Last Generation”, is threatened with expulsion by the Federal Office for Asylum and Immigration (BFA). She will be questioned on Thursday. The possible expulsion is a “sad symbolic act,” Paganini told APA.
For the Austrian Paganini, who deals with “hate speech against climate activists” in her work, the actions of the responsible Ministry of the Interior are “indicative of the current handling of politics” with the members of the climate protest movement. “These people from the middle of society are being criminalized and marginalized,” said the Austrian Press Agency. “The threatening and supposedly criminal is pushed abroad. This is a phenomenon of our time and typically happens in tense situations.” Addendum: “It doesn’t matter whether the activists are 300 kilometers to the west or somewhere else, because that won’t change anything.”
“Inhibition threshold is getting smaller”
She is also concerned that such measures will pour additional “oil on the fire”. “It’s an act that will certainly increase the tendency towards vigilantism against climate activists. The inhibition threshold is getting smaller,” she said, referring to a case in Hamburg, Germany, in March. There, an angry truck driver brutally kicked an activist during a blockade. Videos of it are circulating on the internet. “Politics must de-escalate, but instead such measures reinforce such logic in the population.” The population is suggested: “We can defend ourselves against them.”
An impending deportation has nothing to do with “mature policy”, but only with “unreasonable harshness against an activist who has her main place of residence in Austria,” said Paganini.
Windl wants to fight back
After taking part in protests by the “Last Generation” in Vienna and Klagenfurt, the 26-year-old Windl received a letter from the authorities for “interrogation regarding a measure to end her stay”. She will be questioned on Thursday by BFA officials in Leoben. Windl and her lawyer emphasized on Wednesday that they wanted to defend themselves against the actions of the authorities. Your administrative penalties are not even final, said the 26-year-old, who studies in Klagenfurt and lives in Graz.
European law expert Walter Obwexer from the University of Innsbruck also expressed his criticism in the Ö1 “Morgenjournal” on Thursday. Mere administrative violations, even if valid, could not be grounds for deportation, Obwexer said. That would require “first of all, a serious crime, such as very serious bodily harm or murder or robbery, and then the risk of another crime being committed,” Obwexer said. “Just having committed a serious crime and being convicted of it with no risk of another crime being committed is also not sufficient for deportation.”
