Austrian taxpayers’ money is being used to finance an event where convicted German left-wing terrorists will be interviewed by the Austrian public broadcaster, ORF.
The interview will be a part of the Vienna Festival, a popular, month-long cultural event in Austria’s capital, funded by the Social-Democrat-led city council, and will feature Karl-Heinz Dellwo and Gabriele Rollnik, two former German terrorists.
The former was a member of the far-left militant group, the Red Army Faction, and took part in the siege of the West German Embassy in Stockholm in 1975, where two hostages were murdered.
The latter was a member of the June 2 Movement, an anarchist militant group based in West Berlin, and participated in the kidnapping of the Christian Democrat (CDU) politician Peter Lorenz in 1975 and of Austrian magnate Walter Palmers in 1977.
The right-wing opposition Freedom Party (FPÖ) has criticised the upcoming event, saying that under the pretext of a “cultural festival” a platform for convicted left-wing terrorists was being created at taxpayers’ expense.
FPÖ General Secretary Christian Hafenecker accused the organisers of trivialising left-wing extremism, while the taxpayer-funded ORF usually denounces every non-left-wing opinion as ‘right-wing extremist.’
