Austria’s interior ministry said on Sunday that it would not ban the Egyptian Rabaa sign that has been adopted as a symbol of resistance and opposition to the military coup carried out in August 2013 against the first ever freely elected Egyptian president, Jordan’s Assabeel newspaper reported.
The newspaper quoted spokesperson of the Austrian Interior Ministry Karl Heinz Grondbok as saying that: “The Austrian law does not ban this sign and it does not consider it a crime.”
The ministry announced this position after a group of anti-Muslim Brotherhood Egyptians living in Austria had launched a Facebook campaign calling for the government to ban the sign, saying that it represents ‘terrorism’ similar to the symbols of the Islamic State.
The campaigners referred to the decision of the current Egyptian government to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, and following the campaign, a number of Austrian newspapers published an image of the Rabaa sign under the Islamic State logo, alleging that the government was to take measures towards banning both signs.
However, Assabeel pointed out that the Austrian government’s measures do not include banning the Rabaa sign, as it does not classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation.
While posting the Rabaa sign on his car, Head of the Cooperation Council of the Egyptian Community in Austria Ibrahim Al-Sayyid said: “Rabaa is not a political or partisan sign that belongs to a certain group, it is a symbol for steadfastness, sacrifice and resistance to the military coup.”