Austria: Tattoo artist offers free anti-racism inkings

Tattoo artist Alex Smoltschnik says most people have welcomed his tattoo campaign

An Austrian tattoo artist has offered to give people free body art - as long as the design has an anti-racism message.

Alex Smoltschnik, based in the southern city of Graz, says he received 500 enquiries after posting a message on Facebook offering the free tattoos to anyone who booked an appointment by 18 July. Two hundred people subsequently signed up to get inked, he tells the Kurier daily. Mr Smoltschnik, who owns the Pride and Glory tattoo studio, says his anti-racism campaign was motivated by an incident in Graz last month when an Austrian man of Bosnian descent drove his car into a crowd, killing three people. "Straight away a certain group of people were labelled as having negative characteristics," he tells the paper.

Among the designs created so far, one person chose a fist smashing a swastika, while another decided on two stick people of different races holding hands. "By getting a tattoo you're making a statement. It is something very personal, you wear it on your body, it's very visible," he says. While the reaction from people across Europe has been largely positive, Mr Smoltschnik says there has also been some hostility. "The internet forum of the Kleine Zeitung daily had to be closed because of hate posts," he tells The Gap magazine. "But that's a sign that we're doing something right."

The tattoos are created for free, with only a small contribution requested for the cost of the ink

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