Interior Minister Faeser sees the recent protests against the Greens as clear border crossings. The aggression no longer has anything to do with democratic disputes. There is also criticism of Bavaria’s Prime Minister Söder.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has condemned the aggressive protests against the Greens. “If a political event is prevented by mobs and violence, if police officers are attacked and stones are thrown, then boundaries have been massively exceeded,” said the SPD politician to the Editorial Network Germany (RND). This aggression no longer has anything to do with sharp democratic disputes.
“This also applies when Democrats are defamed as ‘traitors’, when an incited mob visits politicians at their place of residence or when rulers are symbolically hanged on gallows,” said Faeser. All of these are border crossings that show a brutalization and poisoning of the discourse.
Long prevented from leaving
The Greens canceled their Political Ash Wednesday event in Biberach, Baden-Württemberg, on Wednesday for security reasons. This was preceded by massive protests and blockades by farmers, among others. According to the police, there was aggressive behavior and police officers were injured.
In addition to party leader Ricarda Lang, Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir and Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann wanted to take part in the event. Lang was later booed, insulted and prevented from leaving at another event in Schorndorf near Stuttgart.
“Poison for a political culture”
Faeser went on to say that political aggression does not come out of nowhere, but begins with language: “Anyone who verbally panders to radicals only strengthens the radicals that we have to fight together from the political center.”
Without naming him, she criticized Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (CSU) for his comparison of Federal Environment Minister Steffi Lemke (Greens) with Margot Honecker at the political Ash Wednesday in Passau. Such a comparison is “poison for a political culture of respect that we urgently need,” said Faeser.
SEDVictim representative criticizes Söder
Söder said on Wednesday that Lemke was a prime example of the Greens’ attempt to restrict the freedom of the hardworking through ever new requirements – as the “Green Margot Honecker”.
Margot Honecker was Minister for Public Education in the GDR from 1963 to 1989 and the wife of the former GDR State Council Chairman Erich Honecker. She was a hardliner even within the SED leadership and hated by large parts of the population.
Lemke said this on Thursday evening in the ZDF program “Markus Lanz”: “To accuse me of having any parallels to this person, to Margot Honecker, that’s stupid, that’s infamous. But I think Markus Söder also lives in some way a world of its own and it just seems to be a big beer tent.” She doesn’t want to give it any more attention than necessary.
The Bundestag’s SED victims’ representative, Evelyn Zupke, also criticized Söder’s comparison. “GDR comparisons like Markus Söder’s show me how little is known in our society about the repression in the GDR. This is always hurtful for the victims of the SED dictatorship,” she told the RND.
Bianca Schwarz, ARD Berlin, tagesschau, February 16, 2024 8:04 a.m