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A controversial WWII commemoration event near Bleiburg, Austria in May. Photo: EPA-EFE/ALEX HALADA.

Austrian Interior Minister Herbert Kickl has announced that Ustasa insignia will be put on an expanded list of banned symbols in the country, Kleine Zeitung newspaper reported on Sunday.

But the Austrian anti-nationalist organisation AK Pliberk/Bleiburg, which operates under the slogan ‘Against All Nationalism and Historical Revisionism’, told BIRN that it is unclear which specific symbols will be prohibited.

AK Pliberk/Bleiburg said that this would not ensure the removal of all Ustasa paraphernalia from the annual Croatian right-wing gathering in Bleiburg in Austria, which commemorates the deaths of Nazi-allied Croatian troops and civilians.

The organisation argued that the Ustasa’s checkerboard ‘sahovnica’ coat of arms, the 1990s Bosnian Croat wartime emblem of the Croatian Defence Forces, HOS, and the flag of the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia, NDH, should also be prohibited.

“If the [Austrian] government only bans the Ustasa ‘grenade’ symbol and leaves the ‘sahovnica’/Ustasa coat-of-arms, the HOS’s ‘sahovnica’/emblem and the NDH flag unregulated, the gathering in Bleiburg will not change much. Not many Ustasa ‘grenades’ have been spotted in the last few years at the gathering, the majority of participants carry the HOS symbol and the NDH sahovnica,” AK Pliberk/Bleiburg told BIRN.

“It would be desirable that [such] all symbols… be banned, not just a few,” it added.

Kleine Zeiting reported that under the proposal, an existing Austrian law that forbids the use of al-Qaida and ISIS symbols will be expanded to include the insignia of the Ustasa and other groups such as Hamas, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Muslim Brotherhood and the Turkish ultra-nationalist Grey Wolves organisation.

Interior Minister Kickl posted a link on Facebook to the Kleine Zeitung report with a comment that said that the legislation in general was “an important part of a package of measures against political Islamism”.

“The symbols of these organisations that are mentioned are unconstitutional and are in conflict with our basic democratic values, and therefore have no place in Austria,” said Kickl.

Kleine Zeitung reported that Ustasa symbols were displayed by Croatian football fans in Austria during this year’s World Cup in Russia, at which Croatia’s national team were runners-up after losing in the final.

In July during the World Cup, Austrian media also reported that the Ustasa slogans were shouted during a street celebration in Vienna.

The legal amendment will be finalised by the Austrian government on October 3 and will then be sent to parliament.

”The amendment will go into effect on March 1, 2019, two months before the next Bleiburg gathering,” AK Pliberk/Bleiburg said.

After Austrian MEPs complained that the annual commemoration at Bleiburg was being misused to display fascist symbols, the authorities introduced stricter measures at this year’s event in a bid to prevent incidents involving Nazi salutes and fascist insignia.

At Bleiburg this year, Austrian police arrested seven people and filed nine complaints about violations of the country’s law against praising fascism.

In May 2016, the Croatian parliament decided to reintroduce state sponsorship of the Bleiburg event after it was withdrawn in 2012 due to concerns that it served to rehabilitate the ideology of the Ustasa regime.

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