Around 18th of december in austria ... church update‏

i´ll try to give a small update on the protests in vienna in english.

on 18th of december in the morning the refugee protest camp vienna has
expanded to Votivkirche*, a huge church beside the university rather in
the center of the city. it exposed quickly that the priest of the church
was not in favor of this action and he gave an ultimatum to leave the
church at 6pm of the day. from that time on the caritas (social
department of the catholic church) was sent to mediate the conflict. in
the following negotiations with the refugeeactivists it was clarified
the the activists could stay in the church over the night.
yesterday, on 19th of december, refugees and supporters started the day
with a pressconference to make clear some concrete demands and the
situation for the refugees. the refugees clarifyed, that this step
should not be understood as an unfriendly act of occupation in
confrontation with the catholic church, but rather as a seek for shelter
in their desperate situation. caritas and archdiocese had a seperated
pressconference, where they stated that they will not call the police to
evict the church, but look for a common solution to the problems and
demands instead.

more infos, foto s & videos:http://refugeecampvienna.noblogs.org

greetings, rainer

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Votivkirche