While the Austrian government has enacted a nationwide lockdown of both vaccinated and unvaccinated citizens and prepares to impose a universal COVID vaccine mandate with a deadline of February 1, 2022, there are numerous Austrians who refuse to be victims of such tyranny.
Speaking with LifeSiteNews, renowned Austrian Catholic activist and founder of St. Boniface Institute Alexander Tschugguel said, “The more people resist right now, the more people stop joining this whole madness, the better it is for us.”
As The New American reported, the Alpine nation on Monday entered a nationwide lockdown that could last for three weeks. The government announced its plan to order all eligible Austrians ages 12 and up to get vaccinated against COVID by February 1, 2022 — or face fines and imprisonment.
A week earlier, Austria imposed a lockdown on unvaccinated citizens only, forbidding them to attend “nonessential” public venues. The measure, however, had no effect on the spread of the virus, and COVID cases continued to rise, a fact being used by the government as justification of even harsher measures previously unimaginable in the Western democracies.
Tschugguel first described how it felt to be a “second-class citizen.” While the situation was unusual, the activist has found a good side to it, saying that the common challenge has brought freedom-loving people together. He said,
I found out that I’m … not the only one. My whole circle of friends, lots of people from my family, my best friends, their families and so on, are all on our side — [including] the ones … who are vaccinated. As this is such an outrageous terror which is being pushed on us, many people understand that it is wrong.
Tschugguel further detailed that for a couple of weeks, unvaccinated people were largely banned from attending most of public places. Even buying Christmas presents became a problem. “These are the rules: we have to stay at home [and] we are only allowed to go to essential things,” he said, while adding that every unvaccinated Austrian adult can pick one person he or she could visit.
Such strict rules are being enforced by the police, whose manpower has been expanded specifically to ensure the unvaccinated are not violating the lockdown rules. Tschugguel said,
There are lots of police checks. Unfortunately, the police checked from the first day, with additional people working for them: they even hired some non-policemen to help them check all of those things, and the fines are incredibly high. The old fines for breaking the lockdown were 500 euro, now it’s 1500 euro [$1,693 ]. So, they tripled.
Given the average income in Austria is less than €2,000 ($2,257) a month, per Tschugguel, most Austrians cannot afford to pay such fines.
Talking about forced COVID vaccinations, Tschugguel noted that such a measure would violate the country’s constitution, but said he believed the establishment would still “work their way around the Constitution a little bit.” The activist also cited the Vavřička and Others v. the Czech Republic case in which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled earlier this year that generally, legally enforced vaccinations are a “necessary measure” in a democratic society and are in the “best interests” of everyone. The New American has covered it here and here.
Tschugguel said that that ruling could be used by the elites as a legal framework for COVID vaccination mandates.
Asked about his opposition to COVID vaccines, the Catholic said that for him, it was unacceptable to take them because of their connection to abortions. He said,
That is something I do not want to ignore here, and I know that many people who do not fight the anti-abortion fight do not really understand this argument, but if you [are aware of] the whole industry behind it, you can’t support a medication, a vaccine, which is based on this terrible children-killing industry; it’s not possible.
Tschugguel also said that the vaccines don’t “work in the way they promised us” and quoted the safety issues of the jabs. In particular, the young Austrian was concerned with the proven link between the vaccinations and heart issues — often fatal — in younger people.
Tschugguel refused to accept the mainstream argument that one “must” get vaccinated for the “common good,” arguing that mandates undermine personal liberty and getting vaccinated does not necessarily benefit the common good.
For example, when someone dies because of an adverse reaction to the vaccine, his or her death does not contribute to the “common good.” Also, the government that supports euthanasia, abortion, homosexual marriage, and similar policies has no moral authority to ask people to undergo a medical treatment against their will. Even when the draconian measure takes place, Tschugguel would not take a jab, and will “resist, resist, resist,” while also focusing on “protecting families” by providing them with financial, medical, and other support and also shelter where they could hide from the authorities:
I’m very sure that the first thing they will try to do is go after the family. “Ah, the parents are not vaccinated. Well then, I think we [will] have to check … the children’s health.”
It sounds like a strange theory — but half a year ago not even I would have believed that it would come so fast. But right now, if you go to Austria, and you look at our law, and if you look at the press conference our Chancellor gave today, you know that this is what we are facing.
The activist also stated that his country’s advancements in making COVID shots compulsory for all correlates with the European Union’s policy of introducing a digital identification system that would combine people’s COVID passports with their other personal information.
In his October opinion piece entitled “Austria is descending into Dictatorship,” Tschugguel called on people around the world to “join the resistance by supporting the fight for freedom in your country and protest in solidarity in front of the Austrian embassies,” since if the Austrian government is allowed to force such measures on its citizens, the others will follow suit.
