Photo: SPD Harburg
The accusation is serious: racism. A political death sentence, one would think.
But the accused party member of the Harburg Social Democratic Party fought back and sent the police to his opponent’s house. They in turn cooperated.
The background: two comrades, one of German and one of Turkish origin, had got into an argument. The reason was eight election posters for a German comrade, which, according to the accusation, had been damaged by the Turk in May. Indeed, the German comrade even succeeded in having the Hamburg district court raid the homes of six Turkish party members, including two board members of the Harburg Social Democratic Party (SPD), in order to secure evidence.
The Hamburg public prosecutor’s office emphasised that it was a case of joint damage to property and that the district court had taken the overall circumstances into account when conducting the house searches.
Disproportionate, as the lawyer of one of the accused, also an SPD man, told broadcaster NDR 90,3. In the case of one boy (two of the accused are only 17 years old, note uncensored), more than half a dozen police officers had entered his parents’ home in the early hours of the morning and had “asked the teenager to raise his hands in bed”.
And the lawyer immediately has the accusation of racism at the ready:
Someone here obviously wants to prevent promising members of the Harburg SPD of Turkish origin from getting onto favourable places on the party list.
The Turkish applicants for the candidate positions for the municipal elections felt discriminated against.
What a dilemma! What a reproach! What an evil deed! The higher city party leadership immediately asked the other Turkish members of the SPD whether they felt discriminated against. Like a talking doll, the Hamburg SPD explained that ‘nobody in its ranks was or is discriminated against on the basis of age, migration background or for other reasons’. The nomination of candidates for the election would be ‘open, transparent and fair’.
So ‘fair’, in fact, that the entire party has been in turmoil ever since Oksan Karakus, a Turkish woman, was elected head of Harburg’s SPD – in a surprisingly crucial vote.
Rassismusvorwurf in der SPD-Harburg: Hausdurchsuchungen bei Türken – Unzensuriert