After an early accusation of foreigners in the Graz incident: FPÖ apologizes
While the police were still dealing with the shooting at BORG Dreierschützengasse school in Graz, a controversial post was published on the Facebook page of Thomas Dim, the head of the parliamentary group of the FPÖ party in Upper Austria. In the post, he wrote: "I repeat: a country without deportation is a country without protection." This comment sparked a strong wave of anger and was later deleted.
The massacre that took place in Graz left a huge shock across Austria. A 21-year-old Austrian man killed ten people inside the school and injured eleven others before committing suicide.
Although the details of the incident and the perpetrator were not yet known, an employee of the FPÖ office in Linz decided to post a comment on social media implying that the perpetrator had an immigrant background. The post was published at 10:53 AM, at a time when the police were still searching the school and had not yet released confirmed information. Only after 12:13 PM did the police announce that the site was secured and that the perpetrator had died.
After the anger escalated, the post was modified and replaced with the word "Awesome!" at 12:28. Thomas Dim's office later clarified that it was an employee who made the post, not Dim personally, and the post was deleted later.
The FPÖ party confirmed that it is trying to conduct an internal investigation into the incident. According to the newspaper "Krone", the party leadership in Upper Austria, headed by Manfred Haimbuchner, was looking into the circumstances of the incident on Wednesday morning, without confirming whether disciplinary actions would be taken.
In a later statement, the FPÖ admitted the mistake, saying that the social media team acted too quickly and made an error in drafting the post. The statement added that Thomas Dim expresses his deep sorrow over the tragedy and offers his heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims and their friends, emphasizing that such disasters should not be exploited politically.