Big Brother Awards
Privacy and data protection are among the major democratic challenges in the age of global communication. It is about time to publically point at the impotance of protecting our data integrity (formerly known as private sphere), as the progressive violation of privacy may turn into complete social control and commercial availability of all individuals. The Big Brother Award is awarded to individuals,...
Carinthia hard up
A nigerian refugee goes to Carinthia (a province in the south of Austria) in order to volunteer at a farm. On the way there, he rings a doorbell to ask for a glass of water on a hot day. The owner of the house closes the door in his face and calls the police. Soon after, policemen stop the nigerian teacher in the street and arrests him. After questioning him for hours, the police officers abandon the man out in...
Coming soon...
The Social Democrat (SPÖ) experienced heavy lossings in the 1999 elections for the National Council, while the right-wing populist FPÖ reached the second place with a narrow majority over the Conservatives (ÖVP). When the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition government under Wolfgang Schüssel was sworn in in January 2000, several thousands of people began to protest every day, creating a unique movement in post-war Austria. After...
F13
Whenever a Friday, the 13th, occurs, different initiatives organise an action day together, for and with all those who are deprived from using public spaces or discriminated in other ways due to their lack of consuming power. F13 aims at turning the alleged fatal day into a lucky day and creating a new urban popular costum. All social and cultural initiatives are warmly welcome to actively participate in the...
Migration
The barbarian invasion, displacement, emigration of families, exile, movements of refugees and work migration are just a few forms of migration. Political, economic, cultural and psychological aspects need to be considered not only when looking at the migrant person or group, but also the religions and societies between which they migrate. Ignorance and prejudices on the part of the receiving society lead...
Press conferences on the ZARA Reports on Racism
Every year, the anti-racism organisation ZARA publishes a report about racism and racist incidents in Austria. It is an important source of information for both national and international organisations and still the only source of qualitative data on racism in Austria. It contains detailed selected reports on individual cases (made anonymous), representing the nature and structure of everyday racism in...
Squats
The squat movement originates in the 1970s, aiming at occupying vacant living spaces without the knowledge of the property owner. Some of the main motives named for squatting are a desire for free housing space, personal housing shortage or even homelessness, protest against speculative vacancies and high rents. Most squatters deliberately distinguish themselves from social norms and try to develop...
