DThree years after the right-wing extremist attack in Hanau, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Commissioner, Ferda Ataman, criticized the way people affected by racism are treated in Germany. “Germany has a racism problem – this is also evident when federal politicians talk derogatory about Muslim young people as ‘little pashas’,” she told the Funke newspapers on Saturday. She was referring to a statement by CDU leader Friedrich Merz.
Relatives of victims in Hanau and many other people who have experienced racism have just experienced that discrimination is played down “and dismissed as an irrelevant interest of minorities,” she continued. “At the same time, we are observing that after the events on New Year’s Eve, general suspicion was expressed against people with a migration background.”
Against the background of the Hanau commemoration, Ataman demanded that measures against right-wing extremism be implemented more consistently. After the Hanau crime, there was “for the first time a cabinet decision against right-wing extremism and racism”. “It is all the more disappointing that the federal government has not yet implemented its announcements.” For example, the controversial term “race” in the Basic Law has still not been changed.
Buschmann: Hanau “remains a wound that does not heal”
The Hanau attack marks the third anniversary on Sunday. On February 19, 2020, Tobias R. killed nine people with a migration background, his mother and himself in the Hessian city. At the end of December 2021, the federal prosecutor’s office stopped investigating the attack. There is no evidence of accomplices, instigators, assistants or accomplices of the assassin, it said. This caused criticism among the families of the victims.
Justice Minister Marco Buschmann (FDP) said the attack in Hanau “remains a wound that will not heal”. “We must not tolerate the fact that people in our country have to fear becoming victims of violent crime because of their history of origin,” he continued.
The Federal Government Commissioner for Victims, Pascal Kober (FDP), remembered the victims of the attack – they were “unforgotten”. Hanau “is and remains a reminder for all of us that far too many people in our country have to experience racist violence in their everyday lives,” he continued. “As a society, we should do everything we can to fight racism, violence and discrimination every day.”
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