In a particularly explosive situation, the young Lower Austrian took over the comprehensively reformed constitutional protection of the republic: “We are concerned about the developments surrounding the protests against the corona measures,” confirms Omar Hijawi-Pirchner (41) in a talk on the eXXpress evening news show ” 10 to 8 ”that radical forces are currently“ mingling with the demonstrators ”.
The situation will worsen even more, fears the head of the DSN, the Directorate for State Security and Intelligence. Austria’s “secret service” was previously known as BVT (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Fight against Terrorism) and also because of some scandals.
Brigadier Hijawi-Pirchner sees an important task in raising awareness and warning those involved in the demos: “The focus is on de-escalation.” This applies “to everyone”, including certain politicians.
Of course, the eXXpress also wanted to know from the new head of state security whether, in his opinion, everything had gone correctly with the famous Ibiza case – and whether he saw it as the task of the DSN to protect the top government from undemocratic attacks – such as with video traps . In an interview with Hijawi-Pircher: “The task is clear: The constitutionally legitimized institutions of the state are to be protected, including the highest legitimate representatives, the highest organs of the state.”
The brigadier does not want to answer whether the BVT acted incorrectly or too little in the Ibiza case back then – in the years 2017 to 2019 -: “If such circumstances arise again, we would have to look at the situation. And we would then have to act within the scope of the legal possibilities. “
What the new head of the Austrian Office for the Protection of the Constitution says about the current threat from police officers and the media, and whether we have to reckon with Islamist terror again in our country, you can see in the TV interview for “10 to 8” on the big news show from exxpressTV and on exxpress.at.
