2023-07-15 07:47:07
Saturday, 07/15/2023, 07:47
The Viennese ÖVP boss had himself filmed next to a man sleeping on a park bench as he called the police. It is not the first much-criticized action by the non-executive city council.
Vienna – He did it once more. Karl Mahrer produced a video. This time on Mariahilfer Strasse.
This was documented by a Viennese Green party mandatary. Silvio Heinze, district councilor and club boss in the new building, published a picture of it via Twitter. You can see ÖVP country chief Mahrer, who is standing on the phone in front of a park bench on which a man is lying.
Heinze wrote: “Couldn’t accidentally observe @oevpwien fabricating a ‘scandal’ at #MaHü: @Karl Mahrer films himself calling the police because a Viennese is sleeping on a bench and he doesn’t think it’s ‘descriptive’ . Don’t ask how he’s doing or call the ambulance.” He then asked the man, and Heinze also let it know: “He’s fine, was only warm and took a short nap. Public space is for everyone.”
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Mahrer himself also responded to the short message service. He saw that the man was breathing. For an “examination of the facts” he had informed the “professionals”, i.e. the police. The situation in which people are increasingly lying on benches or “on the ground under mountains of bottles” is unacceptable, the VP politician found. One wants to “take a look” and find improvements for residents. Mahrer confirmed that he was with a “team”.
Mahrer – he was vice president of the Vienna State Police Headquarters and state police commander – replicated on Twitter. He was “with a team” on Mariahilfer Strasse “following several people drew our attention to a worsening of the situation”. He noticed the man. “I then went to him and might see that he was breathing – so there was no danger to life.”
He then “contacted the professionals for a further examination of the facts (…) – in this specific case the police.” And: “The situation on site that people are increasingly lying on the park benches or on the ground under mountains of bottles and in the evening Camping heavily drunk in driveways is not acceptable.” He is someone who takes a look – and tries to “find improvements for the residents and the people affected”.
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There are many reactions to the actions of the non-executive city councilor Mahrer in social networks.
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A political observer diagnoses an “excess of meanness”, another finds that Mahrer embodies “the decline of the political bourgeoisie in the city”. Some comment maliciously. A tweeter found: “My neighbors and I no longer dare to go out on the streets in Vienna. Out of sheer fear that we might meet Mahrer.” And the satirical portal Die Tagespresse titled an article as follows: “It’s on everyone’s pocket: the homeless person calls the police because Mahrer is not in office.”
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When asked by a tweeter, the Vienna police said: “A nap is not criminal behavior.”
A nap in the followingnoon is not criminal behavior.
Police Vienna
Social City Councilor Peter Hacker (SPÖ) advises Mahrer to deal even more intensively with the problems of homeless people – and to make himself “equally useful”. He invites him to volunteer at a care facility for a day. “That certainly helps more than keeping the police busy with a nap.”
In view of the criticism, there is a statement from the Viennese ÖVP press service: Under the motto “Look instead of looking away – don’t ignore those affected” Mahrer “got a picture of the situation on site”. “Alcohol and violence: The increasing problem with homeless people, who mostly come from other EU countries to Vienna and especially to Mariahilfer Strasse to camp and drink, is well known.” Heinze took a photo and “freely interpreted it”. . “The main content of this political interpretation was that Karl Mahrer (…) was de facto accused of failing to provide assistance. Mahrer clearly contradicts this accusation by the filming left-wing politicians.”
It’s not the first time that the ÖVP politician has upset with a “local inspection”. In the spring he shot a video at Vienna’s Brunnenmarkt, which he published on Facebook. His finding: “Syrians, Afghans, Arabs have taken power.” Then he located a district in Favoriten as a “focal point”. People with whom he spoke were unsettled and had the feeling that they “were part of the minority in the district”.
It turned out that two of the concerned interlocutors were Mahrer’s party colleagues – the Viennese ÖVP district councilor Daniel Soudek and the deputy district chairman of the ÖVP senior citizens’ association in the district.
Mahrer’s Brunnenmarkt finding also outraged Green Justice Minister Alma Zadić. An Austrian quota on the market is a “ridiculous demand”. The stallholders “earn money, pay taxes, are possibly members of the Chamber of Commerce” – and people who do something for our society”. “It’s a slap in the face to tell them they don’t belong.” That was “unfortunately racist”.
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