The mother of Loretta, a 16-year-old student recently removed from class and interrogated by police after she allegedly expressed support for Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and posted right-wing content online, has filed a lawsuit to overturn the actions of the school leadership and local police.
Explaining the reason she and her daughter are seeking clarification from a Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania court, Annett B. said:
It is important that my daughter receive justice here because she hasn’t done anything criminal. Both the Interior Ministry and Education Ministry have repeatedly defended the actions of the police and the principal.
What Loretta had to endure “must not go unchallenged,” she continued, adding that the filed lawsuit was also “in the interests of all future children and their parents.”
A few weeks ago, in what is difficult to regard as anything other than an act of political intimidation, the principal of Richard-Wossidlo-Gymnasium in Ribnitz-Damgarten pulled Loretta out of chemistry class in front of her peers, where three police officers waiting outside the door then escorted her to a teachers’ room to conduct a so-called threat assessment.
Law enforcement evaluation of the potential ‘threat’ posed by the teenage girl came as a result of a collection of social media posts—a pro-AfD TikTok video and photos on her Instagram allegedly betraying ‘right-wing extremist’ sympathies—that were brought to the attention of the school principal. After having reviewed the posts, the principal deemed it necessary to call the police.
“She felt surrounded by the police officers and she was uncomfortable the whole time. I don’t understand the principal. He’s a father himself. Has he never thought about what it would be like if his child was taken to the police and he knew nothing about it? I would have expected more empathy from a teacher,” Loretta’s mother told BILD.
To Cologne administrative law expert Ralf Stark (Ph.D.), the lawyer Loretta’s mom has hired to bring the matter before the court, the actions taken by the school principal and police were illegal. He argues the measures taken were “grossly disproportionate on the one hand, and on the other hand, there are already doubts as to whether the legal requirements were met.”
Enrico Schult, the deputy chairman of the AfD parliamentary group in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania has welcomed the court’s clarification on the matter to “achieve legal certainty for future cases and for all parents.”
“The question remains: How far can the state actually go in the safe space of schools and interfere with the fundamental rights of children and parents?” he asked, adding that if the court does indeed find the authorities’ actions unlawful “personnel consequences would be unavoidable.”
General Secretary of the CDU in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Daniel Peters also has demanded “complete clarification” on the incident, referring to it as “outrageous.” He called the government’s explanations so far “very unsatisfactory.”
Meanwhile, the state government, ruled by ultra-left-liberal Die Linke and the SPD, continues to back the actions taken by the principal and police. In an earlier debate in the state parliament, Interior Minister Christian Pegel (SPD) claimed that “proportionality” was maintained simply because “no arrest” occurred and “no handcuffs” were used.