The extreme right leads a mass demonstration in Vienna against the mandatory vaccine

Tens of thousands of people, close to 30.000 According to the first balance of the Austrian police, have demonstrated this Saturday in Vienna against the compulsory nature of the covid-19 vaccine and against the management of the pandemic by the conservative-environmentalist government. Summoned by the far-right opposition party FPÖ and its controversial leader, Herbert Kickl, the protesters moved through the central Ring boulevard, shouting slogans such as “peace, freedom and sovereignty“. As has become usual in this type of meeting, the demonstration has also had acquaintances and condemned right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis.

The march through the center of Vienna, which joins a long list of protests organized in recent weeks, brought together a large number of protesters who did not keep social distance or wear the mandatory FFP2 mask. Photos appeared on social networks of a banner with a photo of Adolf Hitler and the message “vaccinating makes you free”, in a clear allusion to the motto “work makes you free” used by the Nazis in the concentration camps.

The convener of this massive march, Kickl, who also does not distance himself from those extreme right-wing circles and who He recently compared the discrimination of Jews during Nazism With the anti-covid measures, the political environment has been stirring for months against the management of pandemics and in particular against the mandatory vaccine.

New regulations

The Austrian government coalition, supported by the social democratic and liberal opposition, plans to approve in the coming days in Parliament the law that regulates the compulsory vaccination against the coronavirus, which It will come into force on February 1 next.. According to this regulation, people who do not get vaccinated must pay fines of up to 3,600 euros per year. The executive, led by the Christian Democrat Karl Nehammer, assures that he was forced to resort to this extreme measure due to the low percentage of vaccination in Austria, where only 70% of the population is vaccinated with the full schedule.

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Faced with the strong and rapid expansion of the new omicron variant, some opposition Social Democratic and Liberal politicians, but also representatives of the ruling environmentalist party Los Verdes, they have asked to postpone the application of the compulsory vaccine for a few months. The incidence of infections in seven days is found in Austria at 1,135 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, double that of a week ago, although hospital pressure is down.