gimme shelter

This story is about refugees and migrants who came to Austria to seek protection and search for possibilities to build a new life in the context of rising populism. They flee from war and insecurity, from Syria and Afghanistan, or longer back from Chechnya and Bosnia, or they are Roma families just passing by. Many of them stay in asylum centres, Bosnians who arrived at the beginning of the nineties are well integrated and have their own mosque and the Roma occupy vacant plots of land with their small tents. In contrast to Germany violence against refugees is not common in Austria. However in 2016 there has been a sharp rise in attacks. They vary from shooting with an air rifle, settting fire, throwing firework and projectiles at asylum centres and fixing a pig head at the door of a mosque to burning down the tents and belongings of Roma. The offenders are unknown. This trend took place in the political climate of the presidential elections where the candidate of anti-Islam and anti-refugee party FPÖ (Norbert Hofer) had a chance to become the first far-right president of Europe. But in the second run of elections, Hofer got less votes and instead, the Austrian people voted for the independent candidate Alexander van der Bellen.