During the pandemic, it was sometimes difficult for security authorities to ideologically assign suspected perpetrators of politically motivated crimes. Many of them are already known to the police.
The federal and state police authorities registered a record number of 21,259 politically motivated crimes in the past year, which could not be assigned to either the right or the left spectrum or any other known phenomenon.
However, a good 43 percent of the 9,603 suspects who were identified for these crimes were already known to the police beforehand, as can be seen from a response from the federal government to a small inquiry from the left-wing faction, which the dpa has received.
Almost every fifth (19.8 percent) suspect had already been noticed in connection with politically motivated crime. Just over 20 percent of the identified suspects were female. Arrest warrants were issued in five cases.
Unexplained motive for political crimes
However, the government pointed out that the data for 2021 is still provisional due to possible late reports. According to the security authorities, the heated social climate during the corona pandemic contributed to the increase in politically motivated crimes last year.
“The high number of political crimes that cannot be assigned is frightening,” said domestic politician Martina Renner (left). “The inability of the authorities to assign these acts to a specific area of phenomena remains dangerous.”
According to the federal government, most violent crimes with a political background, which according to the police could not be assigned to either the left or the right spectrum, were committed in Berlin and Bavaria in 2021: In the capital, which was the scene of numerous corona protests with nationwide participation, registered the police 178 cases of bodily harm, in Bavaria this happened 58 times.
severity of cases
The most extreme case of politically motivated violence from the police point of view was the fatal attack on a petrol station employee in Idar-Oberstein in Rhineland-Palatinate last year. The 20-year-old was shot by a customer in mid-September after repeatedly drawing his attention to the corona-related mask requirement.
According to preliminary statistics, the number of cases recorded by the police in which public officials or members of parliament were victims of such politically motivated crimes that could not be clearly assigned was higher in Bavaria than in any other federal state. According to information from the Federal Government, 1,425 offenses against public officials and elected representatives were recorded in the Free State in 2021. The police registered 367 cases in Baden-Württemberg and 222 in Lower Saxony. Most of the cases concerned coercion or threats, damage to property or insults. In a total of ten cases, the victims suffered minor injuries.
The number of affected elected officials confirms the increasing radicalization of the Corona protest movement, said Renner. “For those attacked, the false assumption by the federal government that these attacks came out of nowhere means further uncertainty.”
Reich citizens and self-governors
A look at the provisional statistics of the federal and state police authorities also shows that some suspects who were identified in connection with politically motivated crimes that could not be assigned had already appeared as so-called Reich citizens or self-governors. According to the federal government, 182 suspects from this spectrum appeared here last year. It was often about coercion, threats or blackmail.
“Reichsbürger and Selbstverwalter” question the legitimacy of the Federal Republic of Germany. They often refuse to pay taxes. The security authorities assigned around 20,000 people to this very heterogeneous scene in 2020, of whom, according to the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, around five percent are also right-wing extremists.
Source: Stern
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