The notion of secularism laid out in this document represents a totalitarian version of secularism; it is not a soft secularism that protects religion, but a hard secularism that seeks to banish religious expression from the public sphere. Read full analysis here

Wie säkular ist die Initiative „islamkritischer“ Muslime tatsächlich. Mein Kommentar in der TAZ

The current Austrian government has been in place for nearly one year now, and it has made good on most of the claims it had presented in the coalition’s program for government. In a super rapid way, the coalition, which was formed by the Christian-democratic conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the radical right Freedom […]

With his hijab ban, Sebastian Kurz is adopting the far right’s anti-Muslim agenda, just with a liberal façade. Will he get the cover he seeks from the Jewish community? Will Israel whitewash the foundational anti-Semitism of his coalition partners? Read full op-ed here

Recently, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against a woman who claimed calling the Prophet Muhammad a pedophile was protected by free speech. The woman behind the appeal was fined €480 ($625) or an alternative sentence of 60 days in prison and was required to pay the costs of the trial before […]

Ten years ago, many people would have doubted that the leader of the right-wing Lega Nord would one day become minister of interior and vice-premier minister. Similar, hardly anyone would have believed that the spin doctor of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party would become minister of interior. And it was hard to predict ten years […]

While the eyes of the public are on Austria’s EU Council Presidency and the issue of immigration, nearly nobody takes notice of the introduction of a McCarthyism that could again serve as an example to be followed by other regimes. Read full op-ed here

“Patriots of the world, unite!” were the words of Steve Bannon speaking to the delegates of the Front National’s (today Rassemblement National) party convention in Lille in March 2018. Saying this, Bannon clearly stepped beyond his invention of what became the winning slogans for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign — “America First” and “Make America Great […]

My analysis before the Bavarian elections. Read full op-ed here

Grossly dehumanizing act of hounding people who look ‘different’ has to be evaluated at the backdrop not only of growing far right political activism but also general radical discourse. Read full op-ed here