Chairman of far-right Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), Heinz-Christian Strache, said that "political Islam must be banned" and that it is the "fascist threat of our time" at the political Ash Wednesday conference in Osterhofen. Strache said that his point is not about "right of religion" but about people's "ambitions to rule the world" through spreading their faith with "swords and fire". "It is about authoritarian, dictatorial structures that refuse to tolerate other cultures but are trying to overcome them by any means", head of the FPO stated. Alternative for Germany (AFD) Chairperson, Frauke Petry, also attended the conference, and she condemned German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her "cryptic, funny formulations" of language over the "so-called refugee crisis". Petry said Merkel has mastered a "brilliant achievement of satirical scarcity", through her approach in talking about the refugees in Germany. The AfD leader mocked Merkel's optimistic promise, "We [Germany] will do it", and said it was the final straw of a string of "discrete funny metaphors". Petry referred to Merkel calling those killed in the Berlin Christmas market attack "people who are not with us anymore" instead of "victims of Islamist terror" as Petry would have preferred.
