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Saturday, July 11, 2020

Germany’s evolving fight against the far-right extremism

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Inshiya Nalawala
Inshiya Nalawala
Western Europe

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Inshiya Nalawala

Article Title

Germany’s evolving fight against the far-right extremism

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Global Views 360

Publication Date

July 11, 2020

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Holger Munch, President BKA, Germany

Holger Munch, President BKA, Germany | Source:  Olaf Kosinsky (kosinsky.eu) via Wikimedia | Under Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0-de

Several shocking incidents of attacks on racial or religious minorities in Germany are making headlines for the last few  years.

In June 2019, a pro-refugee regional official Walter Lübcke was gunned down at his home in Central Germany by a 45-year old man, Stephan-Ernt’s. According to the prosecutor, Dr. Walter Lübcke's argument in favor of accommodating refugees in the town of Lohfelden had instigated xenophobic and extremist thoughts in the mind of his killer.

Two people were killed by a heavily armed man during a failed attempt of massacre at a Synagogue in the city of Halle in October 2019. In yet another shootout, nine immigrants and ethnic-minority Germans were killed during an unrestrained shooting in Hanau on 19th February 2020.

The government investigations and media reports blamed individuals linked or influenced by the far-right extremists groups for these attacks.

In November 2011, government Investigations revealed that National Socialist Underground(NSU), a Neo-Nazi terrorist group has fuelled the Nazi idealogy for decades and is responsible for various killings including murders of immigrants and foreigners.

Another far-right group known as the Frietal Group, launched attacks on refugee shelter houses and political opponents in the town of Saxony in 2015, claiming that they are protecting Germany from foreigners.

The German law enforcement authority also arrested members of the Revolution Chemnitz in 2018, who were allegedly planning attacks on immigrants, journalists and political opponents. Eight members of the group were sentenced to several years in prison by a court in Germany on 24th March 2020.

Looking at the rampant spread of hate, Holger Munch, the president of Federal Investigative Police Agency of Germany (BKA), accepted that suspects of the right-wing extremist under the observation of BKA have increased from 4 in 2012 to 46 in 2020, adding that “the far-right poses a pernicious and growing threat with 3 acts of far-right violence every day”.

In order to curb the spread of hatred, xenophobia, and anti-semitism by the right-wing activists, the German Government drafted a nine-point strategy to combat the recent.

The key aspects of the nine-point strategy a) Internet Service Providers to report any hate speech forwarded/shared on Social Media or the Internet along with the IP address of the wrongdoer to the government authorities, b) Tighten Gun laws with a mandatory check on requests to keep arms by the domestic intelligence police (BfV) was another stance of the government, c) Revising the existing prevention programs aimed to tackle right-wing extremism, and d)  Special protection for the politicians at local, state, and federal level who were considered to be under the threat from right-wing extremists.

The BKA President, Holger Münch said that by deploying a police patrol team online just like police officers patrol streets, the government can ensure promising results. With the increase in funding and personnel in Germany’s security apparatus sanctioned in the state budget discussion 2020, Münch reflected optimism that agencies could now work better and more efficiently in battling crime and violence.

Keeping aside the various controversies, it is also imperative to acknowledge the efforts of Dortmund, a western city in Germany, in curbing the rising trend of far-right extremism. Dortmund being an important city in the country invited migrants from Turkey and Southeast. More than 3000 immigrants from over 70 countries including Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan live here making it a hotspot, attracting xenophonic and far-right crimes.

In 2015, a special task force was set up in Dortmund to take action against far-right extremists and the city to a large extent has been successful in curbing their activities. According to the city's police chief, Gregor Lange, Offenses such as sedition, verbal assault, racist propaganda, and damage to property were down by 25%. Violent crimes such as arson and bodily assault went down by 35% year-on-year. The drop is even more impressive compared to five years ago, when figures were 50% and 80% higher, respectively.

The success of Dortmund city in fighting far-right extremism gives a hope that the nationwide implementation of nine-point strategy will help in curbing the rising trend of violent extremism in Germany

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February 4, 2021 4:55 PM

Suppressing the Minority Voting: An effective discrimination tactic of the US Conservatives

The recent protests over George Floyd’s death and reactions of the conservatives against the protest laid bare the systemic injustice and oppression faced by the people of color in the USA.

The other, albeit invisible form of discrimination perpetuated by the conservative political establishment in the USA is “Minority Voter Suppression”.

Though it may seem improbable that long after the Jim Crow laws are junked and Civil Right Laws are in place, the effort to disenfranchise the Black people is still going on.

The major piece of legislation which protected minorities from electoral exploitation was the Voter Registration Act which underpins the basic ideal of a universal adult franchise by specifically addressing and combating voting discrimination.

To ensure the representation to minority communities, this act mandated that “At-Large Elections”, where the whole of the jurisdiction elects all of the city council, were replaced by the single member districts in which each community selects a person to represent them in the city council.

It was also prohibited to draw the voting district in such a way that  minorities could be clubbed in only a few of the districts. It was also made mandatory for those states which have a history of discrimination to get pre-clearance from the justice department before changing their voting laws.

This law, however, lost its power in a process which began in 1980. In 1980 the Supreme Court ruled that at-large elections were not unconstitutional, on their own. In 1995, the Court began restricting the construction of majority minority districts on grounds that it segregates people on the basis of race.

In 2008, the court ruled that a photo voter ID law in Indiana was constitutional and was in state interest to protect against voter fraud (research shows that photo voter IDs provide disincentive to vote for people of color). The voter ID law requires the voters to have a government-issued photo ID to cast a ballot.

In 2013, the Supreme Court scrapped the part of the law which stated that some states (which had an alleged history of discrimination) needed federal preclearance in any changes of their voting laws, meaning that the state laws would need approval from the federal government before being put into practice. This was done so citing that the methods which determined discriminatory states were invalid.

All of these slowly chipped away at the laws, and especially the 2013 Shelby County vs Holder case which led to a host of issues whVoter Suppression is Still One of the Greatest Obstacles to a More Just Americaich directly/indirectly keep a significant proportion of minorities from voting. Few of such actions are closure or relocation of precincts in majority black areas, purge of minority voters from the voter lists, and elimination of Sunday early voting days which are preferred by black voters.

There have been attempts to restrict registration drives in Tennessee on the basis that many of the forms were incomplete.

There have also been laws enacted which needed people to participate regularly in elections to keep their voting rights and reply to a letter sent to their residence, which makes it difficult for Black and Hispanics due to obscure areas and the fact that they’re half as likely than other people to get a day off work to vote.

The governor of Georgia, Brian Kemp, has been accused of using intimidation tactics to scare minority communities.

In Texas, the acting secretary of state said that he had a list of 95,000 non-citizens who were registered for voting in the state, and 58,000 of them had already cast a vote. That claim was proven untrue when it was noted that there were tens of thousands of people who were naturalized citizens.

In many states, felons are not allowed to vote even after they have served their sentence, and in Florida felons are allowed to vote only if they have paid an array of fees after serving their sentence, which sets an economic bar on their ability to vote.

This is evident that forces working against the equal rights for the minority communities are still working at full force to reverse the gains of civil right movements. The fight for the unhindered voting rights for the minority communities in the USA at the social, political, and judicial front will continue in the foreseeable future.

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