Jürgen Braun, February 21, 2024, Navalny, Russia and Germany

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/153, pp. 19512-19513. 

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues. 

The core of every democracy is the opposition, not the government. There are governments in China, North Korea, Iran; however, there is opposition only in democracies. 

            Norbert Röttgen (CSDU/CSU): In Russia also! 

Make a note! 

Russia has been deprived of its most important oppositionist. On Alexei Navalny, millions of cultured Russians in Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk had placed their hopes. They wanted a fatherland that would be a part of that common European house of which Michail Gorbaschev spoke and for which Navalny fought. 

For this fight, he first needed to pay with his health, then with his freedom and finally with his life. The convictions he tangibly represented thereby played a subordinate role; for thoughts are not crimes. When anyone is unjustly confined or is persecuted, one should also then stand up for him when one does not share his convictions – in the case of Navalny as also in the case of Assange. 

Nevertheless, a look today at Navalny’s tangible positions is worthwhile, especially since the old parties ably ignore these positions. Alexei Navalny was a patriot – according to green-left standards, even a nationalist. He fought against a prevailing corruption and the erosion of the state of law. While for ethnic Russians an infrastructure is scarcely available, party bosses enrich themselves without limit. And the political competition is either not permitted for election, or is similarly banned. Yet Navalny also fought against excess foreign influence. He never forgot that the murderers of the oppositionists Politkovskaya and Nemzov were the Moslem handymen of the regime. He criticized illegal immigration and the spread of Islam on Russian territory. He criticized the accompanying criminality and religious radicalization. He also wanted no building of mosques in Moscow, since he was a patriot. The sympathy of the Ampel parties and of the Union at the death of Navalny thus appears more than questionable; since against anyone like him, they would have immediately introduced a party expulsion proceeding on account of so-called hostility to Islam or foreigners, and in no way would have celebrated him as a hero. 

Let us recall in remembrance: For what was Navalny officially condemned? For so-called “extremism” and the propagation of “narcissistic ideology”. Does that perhaps remind you of something, dear colleagues? 

Agniesczka Brugger (Greens): To compare yourself with Alexei Navalny! That is an impudence! 

With a cunning similar to Putin’s, you proceed against the only opposition in this country. 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Unterirdisch!

Minister Faeser even openly discusses an AfD ban and sics the domestic secret service on us. 

Omid Nouripour (Greens): There is no secret service in Germany! There is only an intelligence service! 

That no longer has the least thing to do with legality. The Internet Enforcement Act of the preceding government even finds official applause in Russia and China – thus, internet censors. For years there in Russia, opposition gatherings were forbidden, as were demonstrations against Navalny’s imprisonment, and in fact under the pretext of Corona. And that we also know from the best Germany ever. 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Mein Gott! 

            Derya Türk-Nachbaur (SPD): Shabby! Sick!

And not least: The state media in Germany increasingly attempts to generate a climate of non-contradiction [Widerspruchlosigkeit], a political unity brew. 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such stupidity! Such rubbish! 

            Stephan Brandner AfD): Completely right!

In the face of the farmers’ protests against the Greens, the journalist Knut Bauer just last week raged on the compulsory financed state radio that one dared to disturb the event of a – I cite – “government party”. This same mentality in the GEZ media is similarly found in the Russian state media. 

Agniesczka Brugger (Greens): Your AfD-mimimi has nothing to do with the debate’s subject. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Just listen for once! That is the truth!

And there, it is held to be criminal when the government is criticized. 

            Julia Klöckner (CDU/CS): Here, no one is imprisoned! 

And there, judicial positions are politically appointed. And there, movements of private citizens’ finances are controlled. Frau Faeser has again done so as before. Minister Faeser thus wants Russian conditions in Germany. 

            Renata Alt (FDP): Shame on you! 

            Johannes Fechner (SPD): Such stupidity! 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Yet it is your friends who sit in Moscow!

There are governments everywhere, even in dictatorships. The decisive difference between dictatorships and democracies is not in the existence of a government, but in that of an opposition, of a free and unrestricted acting opposition. 

            Till Steffen (Greens): What are you afraid of? 

            Frank Schwabe (SPD): Yet you drive to Moscow for Herr Putin! 

            Britta Haßelmann (Greens): Putin’s sychophant!

 Now after the death of a courageous oppositionist, let us in the future the more take to heart to let the citizens freely vote and to promote free political competition, instead of wanting to ban opposition parties. 

            Stephan Brandner (AfD): Excellent! 

 

[trans: tem]

Jürgen Braun, January 27, 2023, Persecution of Christians

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/83, pp. 9922-9923.

Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen. Dear colleagues.

“A message written in blood to the nation of the cross” was the title of a video which the “Islamic State” published on February 15, 2015. It showed the beheading of 21 mostly Coptic Christians on the Libyan seashore. The Catholic writer Martin Mosebach has dedicated a book to the 21 martyrs. Mosebach considered this video – cite:

to be a picture of enmity…which in the Western world actually appeared to be overcome following the victory over Hitler – unconditional and uncompromising enmity; enmity which can only end with the annihilation of one of the two enemies.

This act was no single incident. That this and other mass murders were at all possible is also a consequence of Western policy. What Barack Obama and the Merkel government concerted to euphemize as an “Arab Spring” was in the end nothing other than a victory march of Islamism

            Thomas Rachel (CDU/CSU): Shameless!

which cost thousands of human lives.

The scorn and persecution of Christians is on the daily order of almost all Islamic countries. The murderers commit their acts not seldom targeted on Christian holy days; and that, worldwide: Christmas 2011, Nigeria: Islamic attack on a church, 37 people murdered; Palm Sunday, 2017, Egypt: Islamic bomb attack on two churches, 45 people murdered; Easter Sunday 2019, Sri Lanka: Islamic bomb attacks on three churches, more than 300 people murdered – that is just a tiny selection from an endlessly long series of murders. Despite this, there is still no remembrance day against hatred of Christians. That, we want to change [Drucksache 20/5368].

“Islamophobia” is a combat term of the Iranian terror master Khomeni. Yet there are three days of remembrance or action alone against this so-called “Islamophobia”: Of the UN, of the EU and in Germany. All of these remembrance days have the purpose of drumming into us that Moslems especially suffer under persecution. In that regard, Moslems are most persecuted not by some other religion, but primarily by Moslems of other orientations within Moslem states.

Götz Frömming (AfD): That is so!

The Islamic hatred of Christians is as old as Islam, and it claims countless human lives.

That this state of affairs is scarcely established in the people’s consciousness is not least to be  ascribed to the political-media complex. Yet hostility to Christians also enters where there is no state persecution of Christians, not least in Europe. The excesses of Islamic hostility to Christians reach us also: In France, the Interior Ministry alone in 2021 counted more than 800 anti-Christian criminal acts of which around 150 were spoliations of church buildings. France threatens to become a Menetekel. What is usual there will also overflow into neighboring countries like Germany. Just this week, an Islamist again committed an attack in a church – in a Spanish church: He murdered a sacristan and wounded a priest.

The German-Israeli author Chaim Noll deems that Europe needs to watch over its churches as we now already need to watch over our synagogues. The Isis beheading video ends with a view which shows the sea drenched with the blood of Christians. Mosebach writes of that – cite:

Many perpetrators of political violence in the past 100 years have hoped that a new world and new rectitude would come forth from streams of blood   

In regards these perpetrators of violence, it is primarily a matter of communists. There are still today Communist states. In China, North Korea and Cuba, we encounter in any case massive persecution of Christians.

Yet the political-media complex is not interested in solidarity with our brothers in faith throughout the world. Instead, it participates in the hostility to Christians, somewhat like Claudia Roth demanding the removal of the Bible verse from the cupola of the Berliner Stadtschloss.

            Peter Heidt (FDP): That must come!

In that regard, scarcely any religion is so peace-loving as Christianity with its rejection of worldly vengeance. Thus, religious minorities live nowhere so unmolested as in Christian countries. It is time that we demand such a freedom from fear [Unbelligtsein] for Christians worldwide.  

            Rasha Nasr (SPD): That you happen today to put such a motion! A disgrace!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

             

 

 

 

  

 

Jürgen Braun, November 30, 2022, Germany, China and Covid

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 20/72, pp. 8387-8388.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

Fully healthy citizens under threat of draconian penalties are intimidated. To the applause of the state media, water cannon are employed against peaceful demonstrations. House searches of demonstration participants are undertaken, handies seized. There is censorship of the internet and restrictions of the freedom of opinion. The human rights situation is so disastrous that the UNO intervenes. – That is not only the present situation in the People’s Republic of China, that was also up to last year part of the situation in Germany.

The Federal governments have conducted themselves just as the Communist Party of China heretofore does.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Completely wrong!

            Gyde Jensen (FDP): Complete nonsense!

Jürgen Trittin (Greens): I would have wished it for you, but we unfortunately have not done it!

Yet here to us also applies: A visit from relatives in another Federal State: Verboten! Alone on a park bench reading a book: Verboten! Skating with the family in the fresh air: Verboten! Denunciations: Demanded!

You now rightly complain of censorship in China. Yet what have you until recently demanded? In the state television a daily cover-up with irrelevant numbers which had only one purpose: The spreading of fear – as by Televisor from Orwell’s 1984.

            Zoe Mayer (Greens): You spread fear!

At the same time, crtitics of this situation were defamed and fought,

            Gyde Jensen (FDP): To the matter, Herr Braun!

freedom-loving marchers were denigrated as “aluminum hats” and “right-wing extremists” and banned from restaurants, swimming pools and fitness studios – under threat of contempt of court and pension cuts.

An SPD Oberbürgermeister in Stuttgart was actually permitted to employ firearms against marchers. Police violence in Germany: Never so massive as in the 30 years since the end of the SED regime, so massive that the UNO reporter for torture intervened; police violence like we rightly complain of in China also here with us.

            Zoe Mayer (Greens): Yet you lack any measure!

And nearly all of you have cooperated. Herr Trittin, you have demanded the vaccination obligation for all. Now you can speak much of freedom in China; Herr Lauterbach is, ja, appropriately not here. What is now turned against the brave Chinese was for years practiced here.

            Jürgen Trittin (Greens): Nay, nay!

            Nils Schmid (SPD): That is just unbelievable!

The totalitarian zero-Covid petition was signed by leading mainstream figures – zero-Covid:

Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): This is offensive, what you are putting out here! That is simply just offensive! Nauseating, Herr Braun. Nauseating!

Climate-hopper Luisa Neubauer, the state-financed George Restle; even the from Stasi man climbed up to Berlin state secretary Andrei Holm was with those of the Partie.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Even beneath your dignity, what you are                                    doing here!

Listen, Herr Lambsdorff.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): I am listening!

You do not want to hear the truth; I know that. It’s clear to me.

            Alexander Lambsdorff (FDP): Oh, yes! From you comes not a word of truth!

And Christian Droste in the professional journal The Lancet called for confinement of the citizens without conditions.

Vice-president Petra Pau: Herr member Braun, I request speaking on the theme of the current hour.

And the Health Minister Lauterbach first!

            Gyde Jensen (FDP): Good man!

That is Chinese zero-Covid ideology in pure form.

Now the political-media complex wants to make forgotten all of this. In regards the brutally suppressed protests of this weekend in China, the German state media once again lies Kopf und Kragen. In the Tagesschau it said – I cite:

There are no large vaccination campaigns in the country of 1.4 billion inhabitants. Instead, the people in China live for almost three years in ever recurring lockdowns,  mass testing, restrictions of going-out and travel.

With that, the People’s Republic of China has a vaccination rate of 89 percent, one of the highest in the world.

Yet no such high vaccination rate lead to the giving way of the German government in the matter of zero-Covid. No, it was the stubborn citizens’ protests alone which we have to thank for that.

Leni Breymaier (SPD): Ach Gott! Ach Gott! Ach Gott! What actually remains of your “hot autumn”? Tomorrow is December. Then is the beginning of winter!

The Chinese strategy of intimidation and confinement which rightly here and today is unanimously condemned was a German reason of state and it would have remained a reason of state if the true civil society had not risen up: Across all Germany, peaceful protests spread so as to finally order a stop to this scandalous policy.

            Jürgen Coße (SPD): What nonsense you are telling!

In defense of the present government is to be said that it only continues what was already begun under the Merkel government. In the Interior Ministry’s experts’ council was appointed a man who is not only a declared fan of Mao Tse-tung but also received money from the Chinese Communist Party: The linguist Otto Kölbl was the author of the propaganda angst papers with the revealing title of “To Learn from Wuhan” – Wuhan, as is known, where the new Corona virus originated. I say to you what can be learned from Wuhan: How a virus can be genetically so manipulated that it becomes highly virulent and thereby a worldwide mass panic can be unleashed.

            Jürgen Coße (SPD): Man, man, man, man, man!

You still wanted to imitate the Chinese social model, yet the German Sonderweg, thank God, came to an end. If now the mask obligation falls, then we again finally have our freedom. And that I wish also for the brave people of China.

Leni Breymaier (SPD): You are so embarrassing! The most embarrassing Baden-Württemberger of the year!   

 

[trans: tem]