Terror suspects arrested in Austria

Three terror suspects alleged to have ties to al-Qaida were arrested in Austria on Wednesday. Petra Stuiber examines this in the context of the country's debate on Islam: "Austria still refuses to accept that it's a country to which people emigrate... Austria has preferred to soothe its fears by pointing to the fact that it recognised Islam as a religion back in 1912... The arrests have come at a propitious time for the FPÖ and the BZÖ, which over the last few weeks have been vying with each other in an unseemly race to prove which is more Islamophobic. This is evident in the debate about minarets currently raging in the Austrian province of Carinthia, as well as the dangerous games with the fears of residents living next to a house of prayer which is to be enlarged in Vienna's twentieth district. The ÖVP is jumping for joy while the SPÖ remains silent or tries to play down the issue. But attempts to appease the situation won't put a stop to the radicalisation on either side. They're more likely to have the opposite effect."

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