The Greens in the state parliament are complaining about a massive increase in crimes against local politicians in Bavaria. They refer to the Interior Ministry’s responses to parliamentary questions. According to this, a total of 267 criminal offenses against municipal officials and elected officials were registered in 2021. These include cases of insult, slander and defamation, but also cases of coercion, threats and blackmail.
The Greens complain that the number has more than doubled compared to the previous year. A nationwide negative development is also reflected in Bavaria. The increase in cases is alarming. In the municipalities, people are involved with great passion and enormous personal commitment in the mayor’s office or as predominantly volunteers in the municipal council, city council or district council, said the Green MP Johannes Becher. “It must shake us all together when precisely these people are increasingly becoming the victims of insults, hatred, hate speech and sometimes even physical violence,” he emphasized. “This development must not continue.”
According to the Ministry of the Interior, 32 of the 267 crimes were so-called violent crimes with a total of 44 victims – blackmail is also recorded in the statistics as a violent crime. 119 of the crimes were committed by so-called Reich citizens or self-governors. 105 crimes took place online, for example via e-mails, posts in social networks or comment columns on the Internet. According to the ministry, 50 cases alone were related to the corona pandemic.
In 179 crimes, the authorities succeeded in identifying the perpetrator or perpetrators. Of the 195 people identified, 136 were men. The majority of the perpetrators were between 40 and 59 years old.
“Officials and elected officials at the municipal level are repeatedly met with insults, threats, sometimes also hatred and in individual cases even violence,” reports the Ministry of the Interior in response to Becher’s request. But not only on the Internet, but also in the analogue world, an increase in such incidents can be observed. “Attacks on public officials and elected officials are always attacks on democracy,” emphasizes the Ministry of the Interior. “It must not be tolerated that citizens do not or no longer make themselves available for public office or are restricted in the exercise of their mandate for fear of hostility and hate speech.”
Through effective measures against threats, everyone affected should be able to feel supported and safe. The online reporting procedure for officials and elected officials for online crimes introduced by the judiciary in 2020 will continue to be used actively. Many of the perpetrators recorded in the statistics are so-called citizens of the Reich and self-governors – the rule of law must continue to take consistent action against them, stressed Becher. However, it is also possible that people from the middle of society vented pent-up dissatisfaction and hatred on female elected officials. “The internet and social media in particular serve as a supposedly lawless space in which you can sometimes write things that you would never say to someone’s face,” he criticized. What is needed is “a solidarity to strengthen local democracy”.