Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer and his family have received death threats from radical Islamic extremists after the government raided and shut down mosques in the aftermath of the Vienna terror attack.
Nehammer told Austrian media that his wife and children were now under 24-hour police protection due to the death threats and were being guarded by the elite anti-terrorist Cobra unit.
According to Nehammer, the threats were nothing new to him as he had received many in the past, but threats against his family members were, tabloid Kronen Zeitung reports.
On Wednesday, the Austrian government announced it would be seeking new measures to prevent future terrorist attacks and presented a new proposal that will include preventative detention of those deemed to be at risk of conducting a terrorist attack.
Austria to Ban 'Political Islam' in Wake of Europe Terror Attacks https://t.co/Hsw4yHCh4W
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 11, 2020
The anti-terror package will also include powers for the government to strip the citizenship of those convicted of terrorist offences, withdraw driving licences, and impose stricter controls on the purchase of firearms.
“Our country mourns the victims, mourns with the bereaved, and that alone is not enough,” Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said following a meeting with France’s President Emmanuel Macron in Paris earlier this week.
Both leaders have vowed to tackle the issue of political Islamist ideologies, with President Macron calling for a reform of the European Union’s internal open borders Schengen agreement after noting the connections between terrorism and illegal migration.
“We must not confuse the fight against illegal immigration with terrorism, but we must look clearly at the links between these two phenomena,” Macron said.
‘Thousands of Foreign Fighters in EU’: Kurz and Macron Meet Over Fight Against Political Islam https://t.co/Ya8EJPJJde
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 11, 2020
On Wednesday, Chancellor Kurz also stated that his government would be looking to outlaw political Islam entirely.
“In the fight against political Islam, we will create a criminal offence called ‘political Islam’ in order to be able to take action against those who are not terrorists themselves, but who create the breeding ground for it,” Kurz said on Twitter.
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