Omofuma monument
The artist and sculptor Ulrike Truger created the Omofuma monument as a symbol against racism and xenophobia. Marcus Omofuma was an asylum seeker from Nigeria who suffocated on a plane while being deported from Austria to Sofia.
The five-ton sculpture of Omofuma made of black granite was set up in October 2003 by the artist Ulrike Truger in front of the Vienna State Opera. There was no permit for this and a wild race began between the media, authorities and the sculptor for the right to stay for the sculpture. After a long bureaucratic war, the Omofuma memorial was removed and was given its current location in front of the Museum Quarter on Mariahilfer Strasse. The place was later declared a place for human rights, where since then there have been repeated demonstrations on the subject of residence rights, flight and migration.
Since then, the memorial stone has repeatedly been the target of vandalism and xenophobic graffiti.
In connection with the installation of the memorial stone for Omofuma, the Kronen Zeitung newspaper and right-wing populist politician Jörg Haider (now deceased) referred to it as a drug dealer, which was found to be untrue and dishonorable in the course of a trial led by Omofuma's daughter against Jörg Haider at the Vienna Commercial Court became.
In December 1998, Marcus Omofuma was detained in custody. On May 1, 1999, he was supposed to be deported to Bulgaria by plane. As he struggled and began to scream and riot, the three police officers accompanying him tied his chest with adhesive tape and taped his mouth, whereupon he suffocated. (On this: Judgments of the Supreme Court, August 29, 2002, reference number 6Ob283 / 01p. And OGH, July 13, 2000, reference number 6Ob114 / 00h.)
Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omofuma