A sit-in against the deportation of rejected asylum seekers to Afghanistan resulted in a three-kilometer traffic jam on one of Vienna’s most important arteries on Tuesday afternoon. As an ÖAMTC spokesman for the APA announced, the traffic jam reached back from the Rossauer Lände in Vienna-Alsergrund via the north bridge to the Danube bank motorway (A22). According to the police, 23 people had blocked the police detention center on Rossauer Lände.
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According to the ÖAMTC, the traffic jam resolved only slowly in the afternoon, and there was also a formation of columns in the direction of the Währinger belt and on Alserbachstrasse. The Friedensbrücke was also closed “for over two hours”.
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The “spontaneous demonstration” lasted from 1 pm to 4 pm and was then “declared dissolved”, a spokesman for the Vienna police told the APA on request. 21 people were carried off the road. Two people who had climbed up on light poles had been abseiled by WEGA officials. The demonstrators behaved cooperatively, there were no injuries and no criminal charges. But they would all be reported for violating the assembly law because the demo was not registered.
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The protest could not prevent the deportations. The police confirmed that ten people were brought to Vienna-Schwechat Airport on Tuesday, as planned, to be deported from there to Afghanistan. According to the statements made by the opponents of the deportations, the people who fled the country from political or religious persecution are put in mortal danger.
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The security situation in Afghanistan is extremely fragile. Although peace talks are currently underway between the Afghan government and the radical Islamic Taliban, violent incidents are ongoing. Many of these are also perpetrated by the IS militia, which is trying to break into the security vacuum created by the planned US withdrawal. The lieutenant governor of Kabul, Mahbubullah Mohebi, was only killed in a bomb attack in the Afghan capital today, Tuesday.
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