Peter Junker, deputy chairman of the AfD district association and local councilor in Finsing, applied unsuccessfully for a place on the list of candidates at the AfD European election party conference in Magdeburg. However, that is not the news, but something else: In his application speech, the 65-year-old used nasty insults against queer people. He received applause and encouragement from the delegates at the AfD party conference. Sven Bäring, chairman of the “QueerBw” association, which represents the interests of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intergender and other-gender members of the Bundeswehr, has reported him for incitement to hatred.
Peter Junker began his speech with the usual AfD theses: people in Germany have been lied to and manipulated by the media for years, as an AfD member you are discriminated against, and climate change does not exist. Then he proceeded to defame queer people from whom “our children, our offspring” should be protected. He expressly emphasized his most blatant and worst insult again. “That can go into the press,” he says, he “consciously” chose it that way.
Sven Bäring followed the AfD Europe party conference live on YouTube “out of interest in the event” and overheard Peter Junker’s speech “more or less by accident,” he says to the SZ. For Bäring, Junker committed an obvious crime with his statements. “In my opinion, he makes a part of the population contemptuous.” Bäring is citing a formulation of the Criminal Code. It states that anyone who “attacks the human dignity of others by insulting (…) parts of the population (…), maliciously slandering or slandering is guilty of hate speech”.
“Language is one thing, but it can also be followed by deeds”
Bäring reported his incitement to hatred to the police in Cologne. A spokesman for the Cologne police headquarters said the report would be submitted to the police in Magdeburg, who would then investigate the matter and submit it to the public prosecutor’s office there.
Sven Bäring says that he didn’t just file a complaint out of “personal perception”. “One shouldn’t forget that language is one thing, but it can also be followed by action.” The “sayable has already been postponed,” says Bäring. Insults and attacks on queer people have increased recently. “There are more physical attacks,” which is proven by current studies. “The strongest increase in anti-queer activities” was recorded last year.
Peter Junker could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. The 65-year-old Finsinger was formerly a member of the CSU and deputy chairman of the Finsing local branch. Two years ago he was the AfD’s Bundestag candidate in the Erding-Ebersberg constituency and received 6.9 percent of the first votes. He obviously belongs to the extreme right wing of the AfD. In 2020, for example, he took part in an AfD meeting with Björn Höcke in Ilmenau together with the Erdinger district chairman Wolfgang Kellermann.