Brotherhood ‘threats’ put two ministers under special guard in Austria

In Austria, politicians rarely walk in a security detail, and pedestrians often encounter a minister or a president on major trains or streets without any protection.

But things are no longer normal in the lives of Interior Minister Karl Nehammer and Integration Minister Susan Raab since raids on the headquarters and homes of 60 Brotherhood suspects in Austria last November.

According to Al-Ain News, an Austrian private newspaper, Kurier, Nehammer and Rabab “have not been guarded round the clock until November 2020, due to threats related to searching houses and premises in the framework of the investigations of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

In the case of the Minister of the Interior, for example, the protection provided by the police special forces known as “cobra” also extends to family members, according to the same source, which quoted the Ministry of the Interior.

“Even young people have recently faced threats,” the ministry said, referring to a man with a weapon-title card, “Nehammer take care of your children,” which clearly threatens the children of the interior minister.

The paper noted that Nehammer and Raab “are protected even on vacation and off-duty.”

Nehammer and Raab played major roles in the fight against the Muslim Brotherhood in Austria, from the decision to ban the organization’s symbols to raids and the establishment of the Center for the Documentation of Political Islam to monitor the group’s members and activities.

On 9 November, Austrian police carried out raids in 4 federal states, including Vienna, targeting people and associations linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Hamas movement.

During the raids, police searched more than 60 apartments, houses, commercial headquarters and clubs, arresting 30 people who were brought before authorities for “immediate questioning” before being released, according to an official statement.

Earlier, Heinziorg Bechir, director of the Information Office of the Public Prosecution in the city of Graz, southern Austria, told Al-Ain News that “the investigation into the Muslim Brotherhood file is not over yet, and it is still ongoing.”

The reason, as Bechir explains, is “the large number of documents to be examined,” adding that “it is not possible at this time to expect a specific time to complete the investigation.”