Christian Zeitz is the Director of the Institute of Applied Political Economy in Austria. He recently appeared on a TV news show to discuss the Turkish regime’s use of mosques to spy on Turkish-Austrian citizens. Dr. Zeitz also elaborated on the ways in which the revised Islam Law has intensified the Islamization of Austria.
Many thanks to Egri Nök for the translation, and to Vlad Tepes for the subtitling:
Transcript:
| 00:00 | We lead you fully-informed through this Monday evening. | |
| 00:04 | Welcome back to the Top News Show at OE24.tv. | |
| 00:07 | The Green uncoverer Peter Pilz struck again. For weeks now he has been keeping the country | |
| 00:11 | in suspense with his investigations into the activities of the Turkish secret service, | |
| 00:15 | and societies closely associated with Turkish President Erdogan. | |
| 00:21 | And now Pilz reveals to the daily newspaper Österreich: | |
| 00:25 | Via 65 mosques, Erdogan spies on his political opponents in Austria. | |
| 00:30 | Hundreds of Turks and Austro-Turks were allegedly doing systematic surveillance | |
| 00:34 | for months in Austria. In doing so, they were reporting regime critics to Ankara. | |
| 00:38 | Now it has become apparent that the pivotal points of | |
| 00:41 | the Ankara-operated spying, of all places, are mosques. | |
| 00:44 | 65 places of worship of the Austrian Turkish-Islamic Union [ATIB] are central in this. | |
| 00:49 | This largest Islamic organization in Austria operates 13 Mosques in Vorarlberg, 12 in Tyrol, | |
| 00:54 | 11 in Lower Austria, 10 in Upper Austria. Only in Burgenland is there now not a single one. | |
| 00:59 | The Greens’ security spokesman Peter Pilz repeatedly demanded that this organization be dismantled. | |
| 01:04 | His reasoning: the purpose of the organization can hardly be to spy on compatriots. | |
| 01:09 | Back in February he warned of Erdogan’s new European strategy. | |
| 01:12 | It is the bridgeheads strategy. Bridgeheads strategy means: | |
| 01:18 | We view the ethnic Turkish citizens of European Union states as tools for our policies, | |
| 01:28 | and try to instrumentalize them, through party-affiliated organizations. | |
| 01:34 | The same allegedly applies to the organization Union of European-Turkish Democrats [UETD]. | |
| 01:38 | In 2014 they brought Recep Tayyip Erdogan and others to Vienna for an election rally. | |
| 01:42 | Unperturbed, the Erdogan referendum runs at full blast in Austria. | |
| 01:47 | For a week now a total of 108,500 Turkish citizens | |
| 01:51 | have been able to cast their votes in the consulates of Vienna, Bregenz and Salzburg. | |
| 01:54 | Erdogan vehemently campaigns for a “Yes”, by which he hopes to expand his power. | |
| 01:59 | They can cast their votes for one more week. Until then, everything is open. | |
| 02:04 | And on this topic, I welcome the economist Dr. Christian Zeitz. Welcome. —Good evening. | |
| 02:11 | What we have just heard is incredible. 65 mosques in Austria are affected. | |
| 02:16 | How far does the surveillance go? | |
| 02:19 | This is nothing new. It has been going on for years. | |
| 02:22 | These are mosques that belong to the association, or umbrella organization, ATIB. | |
| 02:27 | ATIB is directly subordinate to the Turkish office for religion Diyanet. | |
| 02:31 | Diyanet, and this is somewhat contradictory, was founded back under Kemalism [i.e. secular nationalism] | |
| 02:35 | as an institution to control the rank growth of Islam in Turkey. | |
| 02:39 | For example, Friday prayers were harmonized and dictated by the authorities. | |
| 02:46 | Currently it has become its opposite, and Diyanet is an instrument of increased Islamization, | |
| 02:51 | and of the implanting of fundamentalist Islam, and is being operated by Erdogan in such a manner. | |
| 02:56 | These 65 mosque societies that are organized under Diyanet | |
| 03:00 | are also connected with a large three-digit number of other organizations, | |
| 03:04 | culture societies, social clubs, sports clubs. | |
| 03:07 | They are under this umbrella organization, and they are | |
| 03:11 | connected to the Islamic Faith Community in Austria in several regards. | |
| 03:15 | Firstly, personnel-wise: the relatively new president of the Islamic Faith Community in Austria, | |
| 03:22 | Ibrahim Olgun, is an ATIB man and a former Diyanet staffer in Turkey. | |
| 03:29 | And the Diyanet organization, which is very very strong in Turkey, | |
| 03:33 | has 120,000 employees all across Europe. | |
| 03:37 | Their budget is approximately €6 million. | |
| 03:41 | It has, in each European country where there are Turkish migrants, | |
| 03:47 | established subsidiaries with several secondary societies, | |
| 03:50 | that cooperate with the Turkish intelligence service MIT, | |
| 03:55 | so that people are traced and monitored in their activities. | |
| 03:59 | So the financial question was already answered when you asked which budget is available. | |
| 04:05 | How large a threat is this? Where do you see specific dangers in this? | |
| 04:11 | I would say that it is a relatively normal procedure, of course, if you want to put it like that, | |
| 04:16 | that large states maintain well-functioning intelligence services. | |
| 04:20 | So Turkey does that too, of course, and uses this network | |
| 04:23 | of the ATIB in Austria, and the DITIB, the sister organization in Germany. | |
| 04:29 | What is truly fatal is the fact that by this, | |
| 04:33 | a rampant deepening of the Islamization in Austria is occurring. | |
| 04:36 | There is the issue of monitoring, in the sense of simply spying, | |
| 04:42 | on members, and reporting dissent directly to Ankara, | |
| 04:47 | so that they have got the information about unreasonable citizens. | |
| 04:51 | The other approach is to try increasingly — | |
| 04:55 | by the building of mosques and different prayer institutions — | |
| 04:59 | to lead people in their daily lives into a deeper form of Islam. | |
| 05:05 | Do Christian values get lost over this? Too lost? —Of course they get lost. | |
| 05:09 | Islamization is a process where the world of symbols is changed to be Islamic, | |
| 05:13 | the appearance of people, and also halal-ification is continuously taking place. | |
| 05:18 | The unpleasant thing is — the fact that Erdogan is pursuing this is not a surprise; | |
| 05:23 | we know that it is his plan, and he has admitted openly what his plans are. | |
| 05:27 | What is unpleasant is that the Austrian Federal government has known — | |
| 05:30 | or should have known — this for years. | |
| 05:33 | The political elite, the Federal government, the responsible ministers are to be blamed | |
| 05:39 | that the Islam Law — they were warned to construct it in a good way, and it was constructed badly — | |
| 05:45 | did not help slowing down the proliferation, and the proliferation of mosques — | |
| 05:49 | How should the government intervene? —The government must do the opposite of its current practice. | |
| 05:54 | Currently, the way it works is that they say, based on the “Islam Law”, | |
| 05:57 | particularly paragraph 6 which talks about the societies, | |
| 06:02 | there are not only Turkish societies operating Mosques, | |
| 06:05 | but also for example 23 Bosnian societies, | |
| 06:08 | and smaller societies operating Chechen mosques, Pakistani mosques, Afghan mosques, all sorts. | |
| 06:13 | In total, we have about 480 mosques in Austria, | |
| 06:16 | and it is basically illegal that they are being run as societies, | |
| 06:20 | the government was using auxiliary crutches there, and calls | |
| 06:23 | ATIB or the Bosnian Mosque Complex religious enterprises. | |
| 06:29 | This is in fact legally a very complex religious-legal subject matter. | |
| 06:33 | It is a fact that the government knows what is going on there, | |
| 06:36 | and that the proliferation of mosques, and the influence of foreign institutions | |
| 06:40 | on Islamic affairs in Austria was not scotched. | |
| 06:44 | The Islam Law even intensified it. It was issued in 2015; | |
| 06:49 | there were a number of people sounding the alarm; I too warned that the | |
| 06:52 | legal implementation was very bad, and now we have the consequences. | |
| 06:55 | We are at the end of our time. To summarize, one may say | |
| 06:58 | that you favor the termination of these societies? | |
| 07:01 | It is not that easy. One would have to | |
| 07:04 | inscribe into law that within the framework of associations, firstly, | |
| 07:08 | one may not hold religious services, and not an Islamic religious service either. | |
| 07:11 | This is a question of changing the law for associations. And | |
| 07:14 | one would have to see to it that ultimately there will be a change | |
| 07:19 | and an innovation regarding the Islam law, amounting to | |
| 07:22 | stopping foreign influence, and the proliferation of mosques. | |
| 07:25 | Dr. Zeitz, thank you for visiting us in the studio. —A pleasure. | |
| 07:29 | We change to domestic policies, and have prepared a poll for you. |
Shut them all down, seize all funds, deport all staff and adherents.
Christian Zeitz has been an incisive and indefatigable critic of subversive Muslims and their leftist advance guard for a long time, knows them intimately, and knows whereof he speaks.