The suicide of Austrian doctor Lisa-Maria Kellermayr after she received death threats from opponents of Covid-19 restrictions and vaccines has sparked a political debate about how police deal with harassment of medical professionals.
Thomas Stelzer, the governor of the state of Upper Austria, said on Thursday that he backed security authorities in their handling of Kellermayr's case.
Stelzer, a member of the conservative Austrian People's Party, said he was "very critical of the fact that attempts are now being made to condemn the work of our security forces across the board, especially since they also repeatedly come up against legal limits in their work."
The head of the Green Party in the Austrian parliament, Sigrid Maurer, had said on Wednesday evening that Kellermayr had received no or too little support from the authorities.
Kellermayr had taken her own life after threats from vaccination opponents. The 36-year-old had been found dead in her practice in Seewalchen am Attersee, in Upper Austria, on Friday.
She was known for her public advocacy of Covid-19 vaccines and often appeared in the media. Before her death, she said she had received a deluge of death threats and harassment.
She had closed her practice a few weeks earlier, citing the pressure.
Investigations into who delivered the threats were under way in both Austria and Germany.
