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🇦🇹 Austria /Crime & Justice

Austrian court clears demonstrator fined for shouting insults at ÖVP and police

From Die Presse · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources Outcome reported
  • A woman fined 150 euros for shouting insults at the ÖVP and police during a 2025 Innsbruck protest challenged the penalty.
  • Austria’s Administrative Court overturned the finding, saying expressing an opinion cannot itself constitute a public-decency violation in a democratic society.
  • The court distinguished between the opinion expressed and the manner in which it is expressed, while noting the protest context and the absence of individually targeted insults.

The chants were vulgar, loud and directed at the ÖVP and police. Austria’s Administrative Court has nevertheless ruled that they did not justify a fine for violating public decency.

The incident took place in Innsbruck on Jan. 9, 2025, after the 2024 election had left then-Chancellor Karl Nehammer unable to form a coalition with the SPÖ and Neos. Three days earlier, President Alexander Van der Bellen had asked FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl, the strongest vote-winner, to form a government. On the eve of formal talks between the FPÖ and ÖVP, hundreds of people gathered to protest against a right-wing government.

Fuck the ÖVP!

· DemonstratorOne of the chants the woman repeatedly shouted during the Innsbruck protest.

The registered demonstration spontaneously moved toward the ÖVP headquarters, but police redirected it with barriers. A woman accompanying the march repeatedly shouted “Fuck the ÖVP!” and “Fuck the police!” She received a 150-euro fine for violating public decency.

Fuck the police!

· DemonstratorThe second chant cited in the case against the demonstrator.

The woman challenged the penalty, arguing that it infringed her freedom of expression. The Tyrol Administrative Court initially agreed that the words did not conform to standards of propriety in public, but also found that they were directly connected to the demonstration. Because she had not insulted specific politicians or police officers, and because the outburst lasted only a relatively short time, it found the interference “just barely” justified and annulled the fine.

The authority appealed. The Administrative Court rejected that challenge, stating that “expressing an opinion as such, unless it is prohibited for other permissible reasons, cannot constitute a violation of public decency at all in a democratic society.” The court said any objection could concern the way an opinion was expressed, not merely its wording. The article notes that the FPÖ-ÖVP talks later failed for reasons unrelated to the chants, and a turquoise-red-pink coalition took office at the end of February.

Expressing an opinion as such, unless it is prohibited for other permissible reasons, cannot constitute a violation of public decency at all in a democratic society.

· Austria’s Administrative CourtThe court’s explanation for overturning the fine.
About this summary

Originally published by Die Presse in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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