Podcast: Behind Generation Identity, Europe's Far Right Youth

The BBC's Documentary Podcast travels to Vienna to explore how rhetoric, social media, crowd funding and staged protests by young right wing activists are creating a hateful atmosphere against immigrants and refugees in Europe.

The show focuses on Generation Identity, an NGO of fashionable-looking hipsters that invoke free speech to defend locals from what they call an "invasion of Islamists" in Europe. They started out in France in 2012 and have since expanded to many other countries, among them Germany, Italy and Austria.

"Identitarians" have managed to raise up to $200,000 for campaigns, including one called "Defend Europe" in which they intended to threaten, sink and detain refugee boats at sea. They hold a boot camp every year where they train members to fight – self defence, they argue – and have stormed on integration meetings, shouting and throwing fake blood at traumatised refugees that escaped from war torn countries like Iraq. The writer who first exposed the group has received rape and murder threats since her book came out.

The Austrian authorities decided to prosecute some of their members for being   a criminal organisation. Some of them have direct connections with neonazi groups, including the leader, Martin Sellner. He is banned from both Facebook and Twitter, but uses other platforms to convey his message against the "Islamisation" of Europe. The judge's verdict found them not guilty, but the decision has been appealed.