AFP, VIENNA: An Austrian man has been arrested for allegedly placing two pig heads on an Islamic centre and mosque being built in the southern city of Graz, police said Friday.
“He put the pig heads on the construction site and smeared the minaret with blood,” police spokesman Leo Josephus told AFP, saying the man has been identified as a 46-year-old Austrian.
Last month the interior ministry said there was a 54 percent rise in extremist and racist incidents in 2015, ranging from vandalism and assaults to fanning hatred against foreigners.
Austria took in 90,000 asylum-seekers in 2015, making it the European Union’s second-largest recipient per capita, while around 10 times that number passed through.
The influx, as well as a number of highly publicised sexual assaults by migrants, has prompted the government to take a harder line on immigration and has boosted the far-right Freedom Party (FPOe).