One member of the Austrian Social Democratic Party caused outrage in the country by posting on social media a message that openly mocks the victims of the Moscow terrorist attack, which claimed 140 lives.
“Karma is a bitch,” an employee of the party commented on the terrorist attack.
Austria’s conservative Freedom Party (FPÖ) condemned the post, and the SPÖ swiftly reacted by saying that “we had a very serious discussion with the employee and the post has since been deleted.”
As it turned out, the social democrat co-worker was also a follower of the BDS Austria movement, a movement supporting the boycott of Israel, which was unanimously condemned and declared anti-Semitic by all parties of the Austrian National Council in 2019.
Austrian Freedom Party politician Leo Kohlbauer reacted on X to the post: “This employee is not only mocking the victims of Islamists, but with all his anti-Semitic and LGBTIQ Instagram pages, he obviously represents the completely confused worldview of the Social Democratic Party (SPÖ), between the rainbow and Islamism.”
Most European countries have condemned the terror attack in Moscow, including NATO and the United States, despite the war in Ukraine.
Some right-wing parties have pointed out that the threat of Islamic terrorism in Europe remains acute and that the Moscow attacks should serve as a warning that Europe should heed.
“It’s a terrorist attack, and every time we have a terrorist attack, it’s something we must condemn, we must condemn very strongly. Although (Russia) is provoking a war in a different country like Ukraine, it’s a warning for all of us, in terms of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic extremism. I hope we open our eyes to that problem, and we strongly condemn what happened in Russia,” said André Ventura, leader of Portugal’s Chega party, during a meeting of conservative European parties in Rome earlier this week.
