A left-wing activist – who, according to his own statements, is a Marxist and Hausmann and, according to his website, international secretary of the Revolutionary-Communist International Tendency (RCIT) – appeared at the Vienna Regional Court on Thursday for a video on charges of inciting or endorsing terrorist offenses (§ 282a StGB). sentenced to months of conditional imprisonment. He responded to Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 with a questionable video.
The 56-year-old was not found guilty for publishing the video of a speech that he gave on the morning of October 7th at Stephansplatz and which he made publicly available on his homepage and on his YouTube channel on October 9th. He was convicted because the video was available until the very end and was not deleted. With this omission, judge Stefan Apostol found that, as the media owner of his website and his YouTube channel, he was guilty of endorsing terrorist offenses. At the same time, he ordered the 56-year-old to delete the video in accordance with a provision of the media law.
“Very, very severe punishment” demanded
The judgment is not final. Defense attorney Astrid Wagner asked for time to think regarding it, but the public prosecutor, who had demanded a “very, very strict sentence” with a penalty range of up to two years, initially made no statement.
Security precautions had been increased before the trial. The man’s sympathizers had registered and held a solidarity demonstration in front of the Gray House, and there were fears that the proceedings would be disrupted. The trial was therefore moved to another hall at short notice and a ban on photography and filming was issued, which not only affected the hearing room, but also included the entire building on the third floor. At the hearing itself, however, everything remained quiet, although the majority of the 56-year-old’s supporters were unable to attend the hearing due to a lack of sufficient seating.
Posted a few hours following the attack
A few hours following Hamas’s attack on Israel, the defendant wrote an article entitled “Long live the heroic uprising of the Palestinian people!” made a video public in which he described the events in Israel as an “unprecedented event taken up by the Palestinian liberation fighters”: “This is a huge and historic attack. We (…) know that this is a just war by the Palestinians “This is a just war once morest the ongoing occupation and oppression by Israelis once morest the Palestinian people.”
The man whom insiders have for many years attributed to so-called left-wing anti-Semitism spoke in his speech, delivered in English, of a “struggle of the Palestinian people once morest the Zionist state” and a “just war” that the RCIT supports “unconditionally”: ” We declare victory to the Palestinian resistance, down to the Zionist state.”
“We refuse to remain silent”
In the eyes of the public prosecutor’s office, the defendant had approved of Hamas’s terrorist attack once morest the Israeli state and its population as well as its infrastructure in a medium that was accessible to many people – and in a way that was likely to reduce the risk of its being committed to bring regarding one or more terrorist offenses, as stated in the criminal complaint. The 56-year-old saw the criminal complaint before the trial as an “attempt to silence the voices of solidarity with Palestine.” At the same time he announced: “But whatever the outcome of this case – we refuse to remain silent! We will continue to speak the truth and support Palestine and all oppressed peoples!”
