USA set to shut neo-Nazi website
An infamous neo-Nazi homepage may go offline soon, it has emerged.Viennese newspapers report today (Weds) that Austrian prosecutors came to an agreement with authorities in the United States over shutting down the “Alpe-Donau” website.Austrian Green Party officials have pointed out for months that Austrian neo-Nazis are frequently leaving fascist and racist statements on the internet platform. State prosecutors in Vienna recently started investigations only to find out that they are unable to interfere as the website is run by a server based in the USA.Now reports have it that Austrian investigators convinced colleagues in the United States that the homepage must be taken off the web although activities on it did not breach any federal laws.A notification posted on “Alpe-Donau” earlier this week informs visitors that the page will “log off shortly but we will be back.”The internet portal has been in the news as many of its users openly backed the Freedom Party (FPÖ). The party headed by Heinz-Christian Strache is currently the third-strongest faction in the federal parliament in Vienna. It garnered 17.5 per cent in the most recent general election in 2008 and claimed nearly 26 per cent in the Vienna city parliament ballot last October.Several “Alpe-Donau” users agreed in discussion forums that they were happy about current developments within the FPÖ as far as the right-wing partys ideology and policies were concerned. Strache has emphasised that he and his party are totally disassociating themselves from the website and any fascist and racist propaganda.The FPÖ used to be Austrias liberal political force but took on a right-wing ideology when Jörg Haider who died in 2008 took over in 1986. Some political analysts have pointed out that the party is more and more focusing on campaigning against Muslims after having criticised Jewish and black people in the past.Only last month, a lecturer was ordered to pay a fine of 480 Euros for calling Islam “hostile” and the Koran “evil” in a seminar organised by the FPÖs academy which was held in a hotel in Vienna in 2009.FPÖ General Secretary Harald Vilimsky infuriated political rivals, Muslims and non-government organisations (NGO) last year by calling mosques “hotbeds of radical Islam.”