I’m not much of a fan of video games, but here’s one I actually would have liked to play. Sadly, because Austria has no protection for freedom of speech, the game has been taken down, and, as far as I know, it no longer exists online.
Even worse, the politician who made the game available is faced with trial and possible imprisonment.
Austrian Independent: ‘Islamophobic shooter game triggers trial’
26. 05. 11. – 16:05
A right-wing politician could be jailed for two years over a controversial computer game.
Styrian Freedom Party (FPÖ) chief Gerhard Kurzmann will be in court later this year for putting “Moschee ba ba” (Bye, bye mosque) online ahead of last year’s provincial election, it was announced today (Thurs). Prosecutors in Graz accuse the councillor of agitation against ethnic and religious minorities by backing the internet shooter game.
Players have to click on mosques and praying muezzins to make them disappear in the game which was taken offline after the Greens informed the police and state prosecutors. The FPÖ was initially tight-lipped over whether it produced “Moschee ba ba” before it emerged that a Swiss political strategist created the game for the right-wing party. The FPÖ argued muezzins were not shot in the game. The party said it intended to start a debate over a growing ‘Islamisation’ of Austria.
The FPÖ campaigned against more mosques featuring minarets in the Styrian ballot and other votes in the past years. The party said Austrians struggling in the credit crunch must come first. It called for a stop of immigration and a law which ensures no more mosques will be erected in Austria. There are hundreds of mosques, houses of prayers and Islamic community centres in Austria but just three mosques which have minarets. None of those three are situated in Styria. Muslims in the province have no plans to build any new mosques in the region in the foreseeable future. The debate about the issue and the disputed shooter game helped the FPÖ to bag 10.7 per cent of votes, up from 4.6 per cent in 2005.
Mosques and minarets are enemy outposts and symbols of Islamic domination. Even a single mosque or minaret is too many. It is far better to act now, rather than to wait until it is too late to roll back the Islamic invasion.
Kurzmann faces up to two years in jail over the controversy. He could also be fined for allowing the game to go online. Prosecutors suggested that the FPÖ Styria could be forced to pay back subsidies it received from the state to finance its election campaign. Political parties in Austria are funded depending on how successful they are in ballots. The Republic of Austria also transfers millions of Euros to the country’s leading parties to help them finance their academies and youth organisations.
State prosecutors admitted today it might be “tricky” to remove Kurzmann from power over the “Moschee ba ba” controversy even if a court finds him guilty of agitation.
It is not the first time that the Styrian department of the right-wing party makes headlines with anti-Islamic actions. Susanne Winter had to step down as head of the FPÖ’s branch in the provincial capital Graz in 2008 after claiming that prophet Mohammed would be considered as a child molester nowadays. She also said that he wrote the Koran “during epileptic fits.” Winter was given a three-month suspended jail term. The politician subsequently became a member of the federal parliament (MP) in Vienna for the FPÖ despite the conviction.
The tantrum from the tranzi-progressive/jihadi axis was all too predictable:
The Vienna Review: Let’s All Play Bye Bye Mosque
…Even others on the far right criticized the move.
“It is utterly childish,” stated Gerald Grosz from the BZÖ, Austria’s national liberal party. Claudia Klimt-Weithaler, candidate for the Styrian Communist Party (KPÖ), agreed.
Wait, that makes no sense at all. How can members of “the BZÖ, Austria’s national liberal party” and “the Styrian Communist Party (KPÖ)” be categorized as “others on the far right” who “criticized the move”? Those are leftist parties!
“What would the [FPÖ] say if churches and priests were being shot at in a game?”
Not being Austrian, I cannot speak for the FPÖ, but speaking as a Christian and as a US citizen, this is what I say:
Christianity is a religion. It is focused on mankind’s relationship with God.
Islam, on the other hand, calls itself a religion, but it is not. Islam is an all-encompassing, enemy, totalitarian, expansionist political ideology. Islam uses its imams and mosques as vehicles for infiltrating foreign countries, for waging jihad, and for extracting political concessions with the goal of imposing Islamic rule over all facets of life (i.e., totalitarian rule). Christianity does not use its clergy and churches in that manner, thus the comparison fails.
Moreover, while I would take a dim view of a game which involved shooting churches and priests, I would OPPOSE any laws censoring the game or jailing anyone for making or distributing it.
In “Moschee Baba” the player has 60 seconds to collect points for placing “Stop” signs on cartoon mosques, minarets as well as muezzins calling for prayer against the backdrop of Styria’s capital Graz, all accompanied with Austrian folklore music. It is only at the end of the game that a connection between the game and the far-right wing party is established by a link to the FPÖ website.
A pop-up window further encourages Styrians to vote for Gerhard Kurzmann, the FPÖ candidate for the upcoming elections and in a survey, the population is asked if Muslims living in the country should be required to declare the precedence of Austrian law over the Qur’an, and to vote on a possible ban on building mosques and minarets.
“Politicians are detached from everyday life but the FPÖ wants to include the population. That is why we need a public referendum,” Kurzmann explained the reasons for the online survey in a recent phone Interview with The Vienna Review.
Oh, and by the way, Islamophobia is just a nasty word for patriotism and for the desire to preserve one’s own nation, culture, and faith against one’s avowed enemies.
Addendum:
Click to play: Bin Laden Liquors
(h/t: lobo91)
