Vienna  - Austrian police and judicial authorities are plagued by "institutional racism" and treat people according to skin colour, the human rights watchdog Amnesty International concluded in a report presented on Thursday.

The problem was not only that 55 per cent of alleged victims of ill-treatment by police were foreigners or of foreign origin, according to the study.

A wider issue was racial profiling practiced by police, Heinz Patzelt, the head of Amnesty's Austrian chapter, told reporters in Vienna.

Law enforcement officers were quick to suspect foreigners - especially people from African countries - and to treat them more violently during police operations, he suggested.

"The result is clear: That is racial discrimination," Patzelt said.

In a recent case, Mike Brennan, a US black citizen, was allegedly mistreated and injured in February, as Vienna police mistook him for a drug dealer and wrestled him to the ground.

Last week, the case of an Austrian of Sudanese origin made the headlines, as it was revealed that the mentally disabled man was taken into police custody in Vienna in March and was almost sent back to Sudan because he was not able to identify himself.

Although the man's parents had told police their 21-year-old son was missing, he spent eight days behind bars.

Besides these cases of maltreatment and profiling, Austrian authorities often do not properly deal with racist attacks, according to the study's author John Dalhuisen.

"In such cases, people with dark skin colour do not receive the same service, the same protection as whites," he said.

Amnesty did not compile statistics comparing Austria to other European countries, but Dalhuisen said that the problem did not only affect Austria.

Among the steps that should be taken to remedy the situation, the study recommended new legislation and procedures to deal with racist police officers.

The union of police officers reacted promptly, saying that subjecting police to stricter rules than those applying to all public servants was unnecessary and would amount to "discrimination of our colleagues."

If no steps were taken, Dalhuisen said, migrants living in Austria would get the feeling that they are forced to live outside of the law's boundaries.

"This sense of alienation surely does not help with integration and peaceful coexistence," he said. (dpa)