Coercive acts 2.8 Coercive acts 2.8.1 Introduction In the year under review 2020, the commissions observed a total of 17 acts of direct administrative power and coercive measures. These include one (forced) return as well as 16 demonstrations, football games, raids, events, examinations regarding basic reception conditions and other major police operations. This year once again the NPM criticised a police operation at a major Vienna derby (see chapter 2.8.5). Other than that, the NPM praised the deployment of the police force at football games as in previous years. No problems at demonstrations Monitoring priorities The majority of observations was positive as in the previous years. The NPM thus noted that police operations at demonstrations, which had been fraught with conflict for years, for example the demonstrations against the Vienna Academics Ball or rallies against the Identitarian Movement Austria (“Identitäre”), passed without incident. For 2019 and 2020, the NPM defined monitoring priorities with the involvement of the Human Rights Advisory Council. In the area of coercive acts, these were the audibility of loudspeaker announcements and the use of cameras at rallies and demonstrations. As there were no conclusive observations on this topic in 2019, the NPM continued pursuing this monitoring priority in 2020. Due to the coronavirus situation, there were even fewer opportunities to implement this monitoring priority in 2020. The NPM did not observe any forced returns by air in 2020. This was largely attributable to coronavirus-related impediments. However, the NPM was notified about 18 forced returns to Nigeria, Gambia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Armenia, Pakistan, Russia und Bosnia-Herzegovina by means of the monitor reports from the Human Rights Association Austria (Verein Menschenrechte Österreich). The NPM took two critical monitor reports to initiate ex-officio proceedings (see chapter 2.8.6). 2.8.2 Fewer observations due to coronavirus Police operations in times of COVID-19 Due to the coronavirus situation, there were in general fewer football games, targeted campaigns and other events that required police operations and thus observation by the commissions. There were also fewer demonstrations because of the coronavirus pandemic. However, the “Notification Decree” was an issue again, that is, the decree that defines the criteria under which the NPM should be informed about police operations (see chapter 2.8.3). 165