Tweet with consequences
Green youth spokeswoman Heinrich does not want to withdraw: “Then the Shitstorm would have reached its goal”
“When I wrote the tweets, I was 13 or 14 years old, so I spent a lot of time on the Internet and mainly dealt with Battlerap and the YouTuber scene at the time. There was a different tone,” says Sarah- Lee Heinrich in conversation with “Zeit”.
© Kay Nietfeld / Picture Alliance
The recently elected spokeswoman for the Green Youth said she has already received death threats. The reason is tweets that she posted as a teenager and has now sparked a heated debate. So withdrawing is out of the question for them.
The newly elected federal spokeswoman for the Green Youth, Sarah-Lee Heinrich, does not want to withdraw from the public after a controversy about earlier statements by her and threats. “Then the Shitstorm would have reached its destination,” she said in an interview that “Zeit Online” published on Thursday evening. “I’m looking forward to representing the Green Youth as federal spokeswoman. Especially in times of a new government, the role of the Green Youth and our responsibility are changing.”
After Heinrich was elected co-spokeswoman for the youth organization at the Federal Green Youth Congress on Saturday, statements from her that were several years old sparked a heated online controversy. Among other things, it was about a tweet from her account with which she responded with “Heil” to a swastika. Heinrich said she didn’t remember the tweet but apologized for it. “Zeit Online” she now said: “That was not okay, just like all other discriminatory statements. No matter how ironic I might want to be when I was 14.”
Attack from the right scene
On Monday Heinrich initially withdrew from the public for a few days. “I have received a large number of death threats in the past few days,” she told Zeit Online. The “shitstorm” against them came from right-wing networks that wanted to play groups off against each other. “They say that you have to decide: Anyone who is in favor of climate protection is anti-social,” explained Heinrich.
It is about “a climate protection policy that is not carried out on the back of the poor”. She was deliberately not attacked because of her socio-political positions, said Heinrich. “That would have been difficult too. Right-wingers cannot say that they are against social policy. That is why the internet is looking specifically for ways to discredit us as a party or me as a person.”
“I am happy to face criticism of my statements”
About her old statements, which can be understood as threats or fantasies of violence, the now 20-year-old said: “When I wrote the tweets, I was 13 or 14 years old, and I spent and have spent a lot of time on the Internet I am mainly concerned with Battlerap and the YouTuber scene at the time. There was a different tone and a different sense of humor, especially when it came to discriminatory jokes and sayings. ” She thought that was normal at the time, but that’s not why she deleted the tweets many years ago.
“I am happy to face criticism of my statements and also find them important. But a shit storm makes a critical discussion impossible for all sides,” explained Heinrich. That’s why those who fueled the shitstorm weren’t interested in it, but rather to intimidate them. “Otherwise they would not have deleted the date of the tweets.”
Heinrich pleaded for more tolerance in the public debate. “I think it’s important to measure people by their actions and the positions they hold in the present,” she said. That must also apply to politicians from other parties. “I think the question is justified as to whether you would react differently to a politician from the other camp, and I am absolutely of the opinion that there should be no double standards. And maybe we should learn to be more lenient again. That applies to everyone Pages.”