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Demo 4 Peace + Diversity @ Austrian Embassy: SAT FEB 19 @noon!
VERY IMPORTANT MESSAGE..... sorry for the short notice!
posting for whoever made the posters :-)
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DEMONSTRATION FOR PEACE
Saturday February 19th, 2000
12 noon at the Embassy of Austria
445 Wilbrod Street
FIGHT oppression FIGHT racism FIGHT hate crimes
CELEBRATE multiculturalism RESPECT diversity
---background----
Austria has elected a government that has formed what Austrians are
calling [because of the party colours] the "Black and Blue" coalition.
A main player in this coalition is the extreme right wing "Freedom Party",
who won a majority of the popular vote. They were elected on an
Anti-Immigration platform. Their leader, Joerg Haider, governor of
the southern Austrian province of Carinthia, is infamous for saying
something praising Nazi policy [see below], then backpedalling on
it, claiming to be misunderstood, brushing away all objections as if
one would be crazy to have thought what he said to be racist or neo-Nazi.
Haider is on record as having:
-praised Hitler's employment policies
-called the Waffen SS Nazi soldiers "decent men of character"
-called concentration camps "punishment camps"
He is currently suing a major British paper for reporting alleged off-the-
record remarks made by him in another interview that "Churchill was
the greatest war criminal". [source, The Otttawa Citizen]
The main planks of his "Freedom Party" are anti-immigration
policies, rooted in blaming immigrants and refugees for crime,
unemployment, and corruption.
Many Austrians have been fighting in the streets of their capital,
Wien [Vienna] against state riot police, as they call for an end
to Haider's racist party's participation in the government.
STOP the Hate. NEVER again!
Send a strong message and come out to the protest this Saturday at noon.
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THIS MESSAGE IS VERY IMPORTANT more so now than this aft.
when I promised to post it for whoever is organizing it.
WHY?
BECAUSE Joerg Haider is as I type paying an unexpected visit to Canada...
Therefore this demo - planned before anyone knew haider would
be in Canada strikes me as especially timely given Haider's appearance
to Montreal yesterday and this evening past Toronto.
CBC reported this evening that:
1. Ottawa doesn't know why Haider is here,
2. that Haider says he was invited by Hasidic Jews.
3. [understandably!] the Jewish community is quite upset and disagrees.
The Ottawa Citizen called him "The Most Hated Man in Europe".
What is/was he doing in Canada? In Montreal? In Toronto? And who is
he meeting with?
-
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