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Read, Debate: Engage.
| topic: | Democracy |
|---|---|
| located: | Austria, Albania, Macedonia, The former Yugoslav Republic of, Syria, Slovakia |
| editor: | Katarina Panić |
It took nine minutes for a 20-years-old man to kill four people randomly and to injure more than 20 before police shot him dead last Monday in Vienna. The attacker is Muslim Albanian from North Macedonia with Austrian citizenship, the very same as his first victim.
“Today, he should have started going to work. He had called one of his Austrian friends to celebrate. They went out to some café, but because they could not smoke inside, they went out. After a few minutes, shots were fired, and he was fatally hit,” one of the relatives of the victim told local media in North Macedonia on the day of the shooting.
A debate has sparked whether the terrorist attack could have been prevented.
Firstly, a gunman was jailed after an attempt to join the Islamic State in Syria in 2018 but was given earlier release in December last year. However, the deradicalisation programme officer never said he was deradicalised, but had been subject to strict parole conditions. Moreover, he saw that his client was developing doubts about his piousness, which is even more extreme than accusing others of lacking faith.
Secondly, the authorities failed to strip Kujtim Fejzulahu of his Austrian citizenship due to lack of both evidence and the legal means necessary to monitor and sanction extremists.
Thirdly, the Austrian Interior Ministry admitted some things went wrong in processing intelligence from Slovakia that the attacker had tried to buy ammunition in Bratislava a few months ago.
Finally, Fejzulahu posted a photo of himself with his weapons on social media before he carried out his rampage.
Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said that the domestic intelligence agency had suffered a loss of trust, announcing security system-related reforms. “It now has to be repaired,” he told a special session of parliament on Thursday.
Fifteen people associated with the assailant have been arrested since the attack. All have immigrant roots. Some have previous terror-related convictions, and some have other records.
“Our enemies are not the members of a religious community; these are terrorists. This is not a fight between Christians and Muslims, or Austrians and migrants, but a fight between civilisation and barbarity,” Kurz’s stated.
Image by Hedy Erni
