Vienna safety alert

Thank you.

In general, one has to beware of pickpockets or aggressive beggars who enter cafes and restaurants to ask for money.

Sounds like fun.

Demonstrations are very rarely violent in Austria. In this specific case the police will separate both groups from each other.
As long as you do not interfere with the protesters you are safe.

I don't think that the Austrian Embassy in the US would issue a warning for attending a political rally.

Nothing on the US Embassy in Austria website or the State Department website. Are you sure this is legit? Antifa identified as a group is pretty much an American thing so odd that they would characterize it as such.

Normally you can find somehting out online, but i get nothing. But we find out tomorrow if its real.

From time to time I receive e-mails with traveler information related to Vienna. Yes, I am certain it originates at the embassy. It is merely information, it makes no predictions of harm. It is a "heads up", nothing more.

If I am aware that a demonstration or job action of any type is to occur somewhere I might pass, I will avoid the area.

Please do not take this information to indicate any fear or threat. I love visiting Vienna, and would happily move there if that were possible.

So, what happened?

Looking at my trip calendar , I was in Lüneburg on Sat, 20 July, which I had not thoroughly visited in years, a well worthy revisit.

I missed this event in Vienna, a pity, since I left on 14 July (the night Spain won the EuroCup) taking the night train to Berlin.

Some tourists, sitting outside of restaurants and cafés, panicked, run away or ducked under the tables when the demonstrators set off some firecrackers. No shooting was going on. The locals were much more relaxed. Demonstrations in Vienna are rarely violent, but there is a group of traveling ultra-left activists, the Black Block, coming from Germany to stir things up.

Just a word about Laissez faire attitudes.

• Tourists really shouldn’t be hanging around protest routes. You don’t know the culture and you don’t know the people involved and the circumstances.
• We all like to joke about tourists’ reactions, but it would be interesting to know how it was determined it was the tourist running for cover. I cant tell a German tourist from an Austrian national. My guess is “the tourists ran the locals didn’t because they knew better” sort of attitude is more hype than reality.
• Don’t try and appear local by sitting upright when popping noises begin. Unless you grew up in a gun culture you have no way of determining what you are hearing. There were shootings during protests in Europe last year. Some day the headline will be silly tourist didn’t duck, locals did.

In this instance:

• Police in Vienna said on Sunday that they detained more than 50
  people [it is conceivable that a toursist could get mistakenly dragged along, maybe a good reason to carry your passport]
• Social media posts showed marchers in downtown Vienna with a banner calling for “remigration,” a term used to advocate for the mass return of migrants to their countries of origin. [in this case looking to be of the wrong race might have gotten you involved, even if you were only a tourist.]
• 10 were detained after some masked protesters threw rocks and bottles. Three officers were injured and the windows of a patrol car smashed, police said.
  https://www.saudigazette.com.sa/article/644375/World/Europe/Austrian-police-detain-dozens-who-disrupted-far-right-march-in-Vienna

Protests in Europe are always peaceful, except when they are not. If you google “European protest turns violent” you will get plenty of hits. You are on holiday, go a block over and enjoy the day.

You tell a German tourist from an Austrian by the accent.

The closest I came to protest demonstrations was in Paris on the night of 11 June, two days after the first round of the European Parliament elections stunned all by distinct and definite victories of far-right parties in Italy, Austria, France and Germany. I was Paris then , part of the 2.5 week stay in Paris.

On 11 June at 10:30 PM about a block from my hotel in Paris Nord, a huge and noisy crowd protesting the victory of LaPen was passing by , noisy, big but peaceful. People started looking out of their hotel windows, as did I to see what was happening. This chanting crowd was noisy and . My first thoughts were : I'm witnessing revolution in the streets, all part of the French revolutionary tradition, and expected the crowd amidst the noise to break into the national anthem...well, that didn't happen. I was disappointed.

Seriously, this was really no big deal. I get alerts all the time from the Embassy due to my job, including this one. Europe remains safe as always and much safer than the US.

If you get to ignore just shy of 50% of Europe's land area, then I get to ignore 10 cities in the US.

I am not worried about a protest on July 20, that was last month. Old news.