Another mascot gets fined under Austrias new anti-burka law: Lego Ninja deemed illegal

Another mascot bites the dust, as Adland previously reported man dressed in a shark suit was fined by Austrian police in Vienna for breaking the new "anti face covering" law. Now this law seems to extend to non-human mascots as well, as Austrian police descended upon a toy store and fined them for their display of a large Lego Ninja reported by Krone.at

Mevlüt Kücükyasar who was eyewitness to the bizarre event tweeted out photos of Austrian police 'raiding' the toy store. "Police storm the Lego-Store in Vienna because of the violation" he says and eyewitnesses also stated that the atmosphere in the store was "heated." Police refused to leave the store until the life-sized Ninja toy mask was removed.

Polizei stürmt Lego-Store in Wien. Grund: Verstoß gegen das Vermummungsverbot. pic.twitter.com/enBae4oocR

— Mevlüt Kücükyasar (@MevluetK) October 20, 2017

I don't know enough German to understand exactly how this law is phrased to make it include toy mascots in the ban, but bizarrely that's how Vienna Police have interpreted the law. Even the Austrian mascot "Lesko" has been interrogated by the police and forced to remove his mascot head The Austrian parliament's own mascot was targeted by police after falling foul of the country's new burka ban. "Lesko" was posing with kids outside of Austria's parliament in Vienna when shooting a film to promote the parliament's open day on October 26, when the police arrived.

Police eventually ruled that the man in the suit did not violate the burka ban as he was partaking in an 'artistic professional practice'.

These increasingly bizarre crackdowns seem like they could be a small protest against the anti-burka-law, as so far I've seen no news reports of Police actually finding someone wearing a burka. It certainly a cold shower for all creators of mascots and oversized in-store product displays.