Pigs Head Hung on Mosque Door in Christmas Day Attack

Tensions have been flaring in the Austrian capital over the Christmas period as disparate communities clash over religious differences, with religious icons and building vandalised, and pigs entrails being smeared over a mosque in the north of the city.

The anti-Islamic move, in which a severed pigs head was attached to the front door and entrails were hung over the door-handle came on Christmas day, and only days after a historic crucifix was cut down in a neighbouring part of the city by a Muslim émigré who declared it an “eyesore”. It is not known if the two cases are in any way related.

TheLocal.at reports this event is just the latest in a line of pork-related incidents in the city this year. Locals protested a planned new Islamic school, which had already come against stiff opposition both locally and nationally in August this year, by impaling a severed pigs head on scaffolding at the construction site. Despite Austrian Foreign Integration minister Sebastian Kurz calling the school “wrong”, construction still went ahead.

Islamophie u. Antisemitismus 5 Schweineköpfe wurden auf d.Baustelle d. Islam. Gem.in Simmering von unk. aufgehängt. pic.twitter.com/d8KEP7XMTN

— Mustafa Iscel (@MustafaIscel) August 6, 2014

In another incident, a pigs head was left attached to the door of an operating Islamic school during the Ramadan festival in October. A Mosque outside of Vienna has been ‘repeatedly’ vandalised this year.

Even if they were caught, Austrian police reportedly cannot bring charges against those responsible for the pig attacks because no permanent damage was done.

Despite the targeted nature of the incident and the use of pig parts, which are forbidden as ‘haram’ in Islam, a local Muslim community leader insisted he wasn’t shaken by the attack. He said: “this is not an attack against Muslims but the whole of humanity. We, as Muslims, will preserve our calm and collective attitude”.

2014 has also seen a number of attacks against Muslim women, sometimes by other women, for wearing head-scarves. In August Breitbart London reported Austria was acquiring a reputation as a ‘Jihadists Playground’, as it became a significant hub for individuals making hiraj to the Islamic State.