A Muslim taxi driver in Vienna, Austria punched a gay man in the mouth during an altercation over what does and does not constitute acceptable public behaviour.
The 41-year-old driver, described as Muslim by top Austrian newspaper Kronen Zeitung accepted a fare from two men over the weekend from a restaurant by Vienna’s Habsburg Schönbrunn Palace, one of the country’s top tourist attractions.
After setting off the couple, men aged 27 and 37 years of age were apparently unable to hide their feelings for one another and shared an “intimate” kiss in the back of the taxi, an action which angered the driver who began to verbally abuse them, and demand they stop. The driver told the men he would not tolerate such behaviour in his cab.
The driver told the gay men “people like you should be shot dead”, reports OE24.
Although the taxi continued toward their destination, the couple demanded they be let out so they could continue their journey by other means. The couple refused to pay for the mileage already incurred in the journey, further exacerbating the situation, and leading the Muslim man to call the police.
The men ended up in a scuffle on the pavement with the driver who demanded payment, which led to him throwing a punch.
Striking the 27-yeah-old man in the face, the driver left him with a bloody lip. A police spokesman said the man was “slightly injured” during the altercation.
The driver has not been charged with any hate crimes, but the injured man is to proceed with a complaint for assault.
Breitbart London has before reported on the questionable behaviour of some Austrian taxi drivers before, with some making hundreds of euros a day by taking advantage of the migrant crisis. Austrian drivers last year were charging as much as €150 for a one way trip from the border to Vienna, taking as much in one journey as they could have otherwise expected to have earned in a 12 hour day of driving.
One driver called Mohammad jokes in an interview with AFP that all the taxi drivers in Vienna had abandoned their usual runs to take up the migrant trade, with hundreds of cabs waiting to pick migrants up at the border.