Court rules Linz Westring protest camp eviction unlawful

Upper Austria’s Administrative Court has ruled that the police eviction of a protest camp in Linz was unlawful, ORF reported on Thursday. The camp was set up above a drill head stuck underground during work on the Westring motorway project.

Police cleared the camp in Bergschlösslpark, a park in Linz, in February, saying public order was at risk and that people at the camp could be endangered by efforts to recover the drill head.

Activists from the “Traffic Transition Now!” initiative had camped there since October 2025 to oppose the large-scale felling of old trees for the A26 Westring. The gathering had been registered for a year and was not banned.

The court said the work needed to recover the drill head did not justify dissolving the gathering and forcibly clearing the camp. It noted that the drill head’s location beneath the site was already known when the gathering was registered. The court also found that the protest did not threaten public order.

The Linz Greens welcomed the ruling and criticised the police operation. Their parliamentary group leader, Helge Langer, said the decision supported the right to assemble and demonstrate, and questioned who had ordered the eviction.

Camp activist Lenard Zipko said the group was glad the court had found its civic engagement posed no threat to public order. Christian Trübenbach of the Linzplus team called the ruling “a good day for democracy” and said protests against the road project would continue.