VIENNA: Chancellor Karl Nehammer stated on Tuesday (Aug 13) he would introduce steps to bolster Austria’s counter-terrorism capability after authorities final week foiled a suspected ISIS-inspired plot in opposition to a concert due to be held by Taylor Swift in Vienna.
In a publish on X, Nehammer stated he was presenting a package deal of measures to allow “decisive motion in opposition to terrorist actions”, linking to a media report setting out his plans to beef up home intelligence providers.
The report referenced by Nehammer in Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung set out 4 factors, together with giving safety providers the flexibility to observe communications despatched on messaging apps – at the moment not permitted within the nation.
Nehammer, a conservative in search of re-election subsequent month, stated after the alleged plot was uncovered that Austria wanted to offer intelligence businesses extra powers to decrypt messages.
Opinion polls present the primary menace to Nehammer’s Austrian Folks’s Occasion (OVP) is the far-right Freedom Occasion, which is main the race to win the Sep 29 parliamentary election.
The FPO rails in opposition to what it casts because the “Islamisation” of Austria and has pledged to ban political Islam.
Nehammer stated he would set out his plans at a gathering of the nationwide safety council afterward Tuesday.
The Kronen Zeitung stated his package deal included proposals for combating political Islam by tightening guidelines round the fitting to meeting for teams deemed hostile to democracy.
In addition they encompassed measures geared toward deradicalising extremists and provisions to facilitate obligatory pre-trial detention of youth suspects for severe crimes.
Nehammer’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Austria has tight privateness legal guidelines on private information, and efforts by the OVP to make monitoring of communications simpler have been slowed down in disputes with its Inexperienced coalition companions.
