I have a story to post today from AP at the Washington Post before I get to the Syrian article. The title is: ‘Austria governing coalition barely keeps its absolute majority as anti-immigrant party gains.’ The tone of it is one of shock that Austria’s ‘Freedom Party’ should be gaining (elections were this past Sunday) although not quite enough to wrest control of the government from the Socialists.
Nevertheless, just as Australia demonstrated recently, the voting public is increasingly concerned about high numbers of Muslim migrants seeking asylum in their countries.
Here is the WAPO:
VIENNA — Hundreds of thousands of voters disenchanted with Austria’s cozy ruling coalition voted Sunday for a right-wing opposition party championing anti-immigrant and EU-skeptic views, leaving the government barely holding on to the absolute majority its needs to stay in power for the next five years.
[…..]
Although the results gave the two parties nearly 51 percent of all votes cast Sunday, the real winner in terms of gains was the right-wing Freedom Party. With 21.4 percent, its showing was nearly 4 percentage points better than at the last general elections five years ago.
[…..]
…..in a country traditionally fearful of outside influences bursting its bubble of prosperity, Freedom Party calls of “Austria first” appeared to have been effective, along with slogans exploiting distrust of Muslim immigrants.
So why might voters distrust Muslim migrants? Remember this story from February when “asylum seekers” holed-up in a church, went on a hunger strike and demanded they be allowed to stay in Austria. It is one of many we have written about Austria (click here for more).
Austria criticized for taking Syrian Christians!
Now this is the story (at the Lebanon Daily Star) about the first Syrians arriving in Austria. 17 countries have agreed to take Syrians according to the UNHCR.
This is the first specific mention I’ve seen of Syrian Christians being helped by the West.
VIENNA: A family of four Syrian refugees has arrived in Austria, the first of 500 that the country has offered to take.
Interior Ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundboeck says the family arrived Tuesday evening. He says plans are to bring the rest of the contingent to Austria “as quickly as possible,” but cannot give a precise date for when the last refugee will enter the country.
The four are Christians. Charity organizations have criticized the government’s selection method, saying Christians were given preference. Grundboeck says that members of groups most at threat were chosen – children and minorities, including religious minorities.
“Charity organizations” complained about the choice of Christians, gee, what a surprise!