Ruling threatens citizenship for 20,000 Turks in Austria

A Turkish man has been stripped of the Austrian citizenship he had held for 20 years in a legal victory for the country’s far right.

The supreme court in Vienna ruled that the 55-year-old man, whose identity is protected by privacy laws, had given up his right to Austrian nationality when he registered to vote in Turkey.

The verdict sets a clear precedent for the Right-wing Freedom Party’s campaign to deprive at least 20,000 naturalised Turks of their Austrian passports.

Last year the party, which controls the interior and foreign ministries in the coalition government, gave the security services the names of about 100,000 people on the Turkish electoral roll.

The country’s strict citizenship law makes it all but impossible for people to hold dual nationality unless they were born on Austrian soil.

The party claims that the authorities have been turning a blind eye to foreigners who become naturalised citizens, take advantage of the benefits of a European passport and then return to the country of their birth.

Opposition figures argue that the crusade is racially motivated.

Vienna’s Left-wing city government has been accused of tolerating the practice in exchange for Turkish voters’ loyalty.

‘‘The accumulation of such cases is blatant,’’ the Freedom Party said yesterday.

‘‘But the motivation of the authorities to swiftly implement legal duties seems to be limited.’’

Johann Gudenus, the party’s leader in Vienna, said: ‘‘Now there is nothing more standing in the way of the consequences.’’ – local their