Free Austrian Daily Rapped for Islamophobic Article

Austria's media authority condemned on Monday the capital Vienna's biggest free daily newspaper Heute for an article deemed racist and insulting to Muslims.

The December article in Heute ("Today") reported that a suspect in a murder trial was the sort of person "who thankfully tends to live in the shadow of the moon crescent."

The newspaper, read daily by several hundred thousand commuters as well as children on their way to school, said that in such countries "during prayer the backside is higher than the head".

The Pressrat authority ruled that this constituted a "denigration of people of Muslim faith" as well as "discrimination on religious and/or racist grounds and vilification of a recognized religious community".

The authority praised the newspaper however for its disciplinary action against the two journalists behind the article, who have said they are ready to do community work for Muslim organizations in recompense.