Austrian Police Officers Rebel Against Proposed Mandatory Vaccines: Claim

Police officers in the Austrian region of Vorarlberg have written a letter attacking the government’s mandatory vaccine policy, it is claimed, while police officials have accused them of violating their oaths.

The letter was published earlier this week and called on the Austrian government to “restore social peace, to end the division between the population and to give back personal responsibility to the Austrian people”.

The authors also demanded that the government end the proposed vaccination mandate, which is scheduled to begin in February and could see unvaccinated Austrian residents fined or even imprisoned for not taking the Wuhan coronavirus vaccine.

Susanne Dilp from the Press Office of the Vorarlberg State Police Directorate said the police leadership in her region officially distanced themselves from the content of the letter, telling newspaper Kronen Zeitung: “This is the personal opinion of the authors, which is not representative [of the Police Directorate].”

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— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 25, 2021

On Thursday, Austria’s State Police Directorate commented on the letter, saying: “When establishing the employment relationship, we all swore to obey the laws of the Republic of Austria and to faithfully and conscientiously fulfil all the duties associated with the office.”

The State Police Directorate then went on to accuse the officers who wrote the letter of breaching their oaths by not supporting the government measures.

According to Kronen Zeitung, the authors of the letter have yet to be identified but are politically supportive of left and right-wing parties. The newspaper claims that the situation with the police forces across part of the country is also “extremely tense” and officers have been threatened with consequences for not enforcing the coronavirus laws.

On Monday, Austria began a general lockdown for all, regardless of vaccinations status, in an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus after a surge in new infections after initially proposing that only unvaccinated people would be put into lockdown.

Earlier this week, Vice President of the Lower Austrian Medical Association Gerrit Loibl suggested that to encourage people to take the vaccine, the unvaccinated should be fined up to €100 (£78/$113) per month. Others were sceptical of the proposal, noting that some people might just pay the fine and not get vaccinated.

Austria: Unvaccinated Could Face Prison as Country Locks Down and Govt Makes Vaccines COMPULSORY https://t.co/WMPcDzhJne

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 19, 2021

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com