News

VIENNA, Austria, October 24, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Vienna offices of Human Life International (HLI) were attacked and damaged during the recent World Prayer Congress for Life held in the Austrian capital, which HLI organized.

Wolfram Schrems of HLI Austria said organizers were forewarned that pro-abortion activists might resort to violent counter-demonstrations during the Congress.

“On the Internet, fierce demonstrations and even criminal actions were planned against the congress,” Schrems told LifeSiteNews. “Posters announcing demonstrations contained offensive and martial images.”

Image

One of the posters showed a masked woman with a weapon pointed at the target “Vatican.”

A video of the vandalism by Gloria TV, the Swiss-based Catholic internet video and news service, shows that the double-glass entrance door of HLI’s office was destroyed and jars filled with black paint were thrown into the office.

Black paint covered a computer, some office furniture and the floor of the office.

One of the jars apparently didn’t break and was taken as evidence by investigating police officers.

CLICK ‘LIKE’ IF YOU ARE PRO-LIFE!

Last year the office of Human Life International’s European Regional Director, Joannes Bucher, was attacked after a pro-life march in Salzburg, Austria.

The HLI office in Salzburg suffered seven broken windows, amounting to thousands of dollars in damage.

HLI’s Austria Director Dietmar Fischer spoke to Gloria TV about the incident at the time, saying that local media coverage mostly ignored the attack.

According to the Gloria TV report, during the “Thousand Cross March” in Salzburg, almost 50 law enforcement officers were necessary to “protect the life marchers from a violence-prone group of abortion activists, many of whom shielded their identities by wearing black masks.”

The HLI office was attacked soon after the march.

“The police report affirms that witnesses saw seven offenders dressed in black, wearing masks to hide their identities, and one wearing white hand gloves,” according to Gloria TV.

Another video of an attack on the HLI offices in Vienna in 2010 was also reported by Gloria TV.

Other violent incidents against pro-lifers have taken place in Austria. See LifeSiteNews coverage here and here.

“Every pro-lifer is accustomed to these unhappy events,” remarked Wolfram Schrems on the most recent vandalism of the HLI Vienna office.

“On the other hand, they are a confirmation that the pro-lifers are on the right course,” he concluded.