Austria adopts anti-terrorism laws

Austria has adopted new penalties against the promotion of extremist groups, including those with links to “religiously-motivated crimes”, that will ban the symbols of a range of terrorist groups.

The new powers were drawn up in response to an attack in November by an ISIS sympathiser who killed four people in central Vienna.

Austria has nine million citizens and one of the highest per capita rates of ISIS sympathisers with an estimated 150 people known to have returned there after fighting for the terrorist organisation in Syria or Iraq.