Anti-Muslim hate in Austria reaches new high: report

Austria recorded the highest number of incidents of anti-Muslim hatred last year since it began keeping records in 2015, a report said.

The Documentation Centre on Islamophobia and Anti-Muslim Racism's annual report, released on Monday, was published on its website.

It said the number of reported cases has risen, especially since the outbreak of the Israel's war on Gaza on October 7 last year.

More cases were recorded from October to December than in the first nine months of 2023.

The first place where more cases were reported from October was schools, the report said. In the education sector, anti-Muslim incidents were reported by parents, pupils and teachers.

Overall, 66.7% of the documented cases took place online and 33.7% offline. Some 87.8% of the cases documented online concerned the spread of hate.

Muslims were dehumanised and compared to animals in online comments, according to the report.

Many would also attribute sole responsibility for anti-Semitism to Muslims, it noted.

It said 40.8% of all reported cases involved unequal treatment and 19.5% involved insults. The spread of hatred accounted for 8.9% and 2.6% involved physical assaults.

The remaining incidents were divided into the categories of vandalism (7.5%), police violence (7.3%), dangerous threats (3.2%), incitement to hatred (1.8%), bullying and stalking (0.8%) and other (7.7%).

In its report, the documentation centre emphasised that its statistics are a snapshot and that the actual number of cases is thought to be significantly higher.

The organisation sees the figures as a "worrying development" that is increasingly contributing to a division in society. The documentation centre, therefore, called for more attention to be paid to anti-Muslim hatred.