Vienna, Rajab 11, 1437, April 18, 2016, SPA -- Austrian authorities saw a 54-per-cent rise in the number of criminal incidents that were motivated by far-right extremism last year, the Green party said Monday, according to dpa. There were 1,156 such cases in 2015, the party said, citing figures that the Interior Ministry had issued in answer to a parliamentary inquiry. Among those incidents, 323 had a racist or xenophobic background, nearly three times as many as in 2014. These data show "the criminal tip of our society's shift to the right that was triggered by the debate about refugees," the Green's justice spokesman, Albert Steinhauser, told Austrian Press Agency APA. While a vast number of Austrian volunteers welcomed the first wave of refugees last summer, a major section of the population has drifted towards the anti-immigration stance of the opposition Freedom Party, which has been leading polls for months. After taking in 90,000 asylum seekers last year, the centrist government coalition in Vienna reversed course this year. It has drawn up a package of restrictive border control measures and asylum procedures. --SPA 22:19 LOCAL TIME 19:19 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w