Detlev Spangenberg, November 6, 2020, Corona Preventative Measures

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/190, pp. 23954-23955.

The essence of a democracy consists of the citizens making the decisions. We may have our doubts about that. As is known, justice is increasingly concerned with Corona protective measures because these are not based on legal grounds but are put through by decree [Verordnung]. To obviate this, the coalition wants to insert a §28a into the infection protection law. This planned supplement by means of §28a contradicts the concepts of freedom and the state of law, and it solidifies the discontent of the citizens. This paragraph makes possible unprecedented restrictions of personal freedom. Especially can it provoke the violation of the most personal places of retreat, the security of one’s own dwelling – this has been plainly addressed – , spiritual harm; yet also resistance.

Furthermore to be expected are psychic burdens or illnesses as a consequence of isolation, pressure on account of compulsory measures such as concern for occupational-economic livelihood. Economic life and the protection of health cannot be seen to be in contradiction to one another – as it often appears to us. In a functioning civil society, both are indispensable and conditioned upon one another.

This year’s Corona preventative measures have already produced major health effects. To this also pertains the lack of adjustment on account of restrictions on sports and in the cultural area.

Instead of now enforcing new restrictions of basic rights, it would have been necessary for the government to earlier concern itself with the problems of care-giving. These failures are now clearly having effect.

The common position paper of Science and the Medical Profession [Wissenschaft und Ärtzeschaft] of October 28, 2020, in which the factual situation was presented clearly and with understanding, is on the other hand beneficial and surprising. Behind it stand more than 50 signers, professional associations and professionals. This paper was formulated on the basis of an objective estimate of the situation. The withdrawal of one signer, ladies and gentlemen, can be attributed to a social-political pressure which meanwhile has taken on forms unworthy of a state of law.

Measures, which you decreed as panacea to the citizens, were considered in the declaration to be inexpedient; for example, the pursuit of contacts. Here also in this regard is the demand to employ insight instead of prohibitions. According to this paper, the principle of medical practice was to minimize serious lapses, yet not to allow the rise of new harms.

Our motion, “Personal Responsibility instead of Prohibition and Compulsion – Prevent Medical and Economic Collapse and Avoid Collateral Damage”, presents the demand to direct attention to the defense of the persons who are in fact endangered. I was here once already reviled as an enemy of mankind because I demanded this. It is now, oddly enough, customary to demand it, ladies and gentlemen.

That calls for an inversion of the argument: We cannot drive an entire country to ruin but we must concentrate on the people who are in fact endangered. Instead, establishments were condemned to close with convoluted concepts of hygiene, by decree, without logical basis, such as restaurant establishments which are not even allowed to work in the open air.

It is also absurd to prescribe the wearing of masks under the open sky. Ladies and gentlemen, that is completely crazy; it cannot be said otherwise.

We demand in our motion measures such as rapid tests for visitors to establishments for elders, support of endangered persons, the introduction of a nationwide “traffic light” system, no retention of critical operations so as to hold onto bed capacity.

The health hazard emanating from Covid-19 is evidently not greater than that from other viral illnesses. The further spread of the virus, in Germany and worldwide, is not to be hindered. The effect of the lockdowns is in no justified proportion to the damages thereby caused in reference to the state of law, healthcare and economic life, ladies and gentlemen.

Angst is a bad counselor as, for example, Professor Streeck, along with the shocking pictures which the media initially showed us. The virus is dangerous for a few, like other viral illnesses. And Streeck, for example, clearly contradicts the assumption that there is a rapid, exponential increase in the infection numbers; this is a scientifically untenable assertion which is nevertheless often repeated.

We, ladies and gentlemen, are not passing through a serious crisis owing to this new virus –

            President Wolfgang Schäuble: Herr colleague.

– but owing to the disproportionate political measures against it.

Thank you very much.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

Jürgen Braun, November 6, 2020, Freedom of Religion

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/190, pp. 23986-23987.

Frau President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

I especially greet the Israeli-American author Tuvia Tenenbom in the visitors gallery with his fantastic wife Tisi. I am especially happy that they are taking part in our debate here in the German Bundestag on the topic of freedom of religion and I hope that they soon have the opportunity to re-open their Jewish Theater in New York.  

The Islamist attack in Vienna makes violently clear to us how important is the debate which we at the moment are conducting. We mourn with Austria and bow before the victims.

Herr Grübel, we have a high estimate of your work as the Federal government’s religions commissioner; it is bitterly necessary. We are only afraid that your own government does not sufficiently value this work. Under this Chancellor, you will indeed scarcely be able to attain everything. Angela Merkel has no ear for persecuted Christians.

To have clearly named the murderous, anti-semitic attack in Halle; we thank you for that. Diabolization of Jews has no place in Germany. Never again Judenhass – no matter from whom.

It is also good that the restrictions of freedom of belief for Christians as a symptom of Corona are a theme of this report. To which I add: The complete and comprehensive refusal of Easter services in Germany was a devastating signal. The AfD, as the only delegation, defended the highest holy day of Christianity.

            Christine Buchholz (Linke): A bad joke!

We are missing a clear presentation of the violent persecution of Christians under Islam, the assassinations, the mission of violence. In this religions report, it was simply not described with sufficient clarity. Worldwide, the persecution of Christians is the greatest problem.  

The EU Commission trivializes terror attacks. It attempts to cut off justified criticism of Islam following Islamist terror attacks. Islam is not a race and therefore criticism of Islam can never be racism.

Radical Islam displays itself yet again as a deadly danger. Christians in prayer were brutally slaughtered – in Nice. Homosexuals in Germany were seriously wounded and killed – in Dresden. Not once to this day is there the smallest manifestation of mourning over this murder by the Federal Chancellor.

Threats of murder in the name of Islam once again demonstrate: Radical Islam does not belong to Europe, Islam does not belong to Germany.

France’s President Macron calls for a fight against Islamism; the Federal government does the opposite. Interior Minister Seehofer mocks the victims of terrorism. Substantial criticism of Islam will now be made impossible with a so-called experts circle for the control of anti-Moslem hostility.

Islamic states forbid the renunciation of Islam, frequently under a threat of the death penalty. Just so will any criticism of Islam be harshly punished; and here also, death threatens. §166 of the German penal code on the other hand contains milder penalties. Yet this paragraph is no glorious chapter for our state of law.This paragraph is perverse: It defends aggressive religious groups and violent activity will be rewarded. This §166 offers no defense of peaceful religions. It is used only by Islamic extremists. It therefore is to be stricken.

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

Martin Hess, November 5, 2020, Islamist Terror

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/189, pp. 23824-23825.

Right honorable Herr President. Dear colleagues.

Repeatedly we stand here because Islamist barbarians have bestially murdered people in France, Austria and Germany. Repeatedly must we take notice with the usual, perplexed rhetoric and naturally the government as well as the remainder of delegations here in the house promise to do all that is humanly possible to fight Islamist terrorism. Yet the truth is: You do not do it, and you have never done it.

In Germany and in Europe, people die because you refuse to implement the necessary defensive measures and for that you should be ashamed. Your total failure is no longer acceptable.

The citizens have had enough of always only hearing big words from you. The citizens want the cancer of Islamist terrorism finally removed and Germany again secured. This is presently the state’s most important duty and this must be immediately carried out with all consequence and with all necessary means.  

That begins with a clear and unmistakable naming of the truth. If the Chancellor in her declaration concerning the Islamist terror attack in Nice makes no mention of the origin, namely Islamism, then that is cowardice in the face of the enemy. Yes, you have heard correctly. The Islamists have declared war on Europe and we must now finally strike back. To that end, it is non-negotiable that the enemy also be clearly named. And he who believes it possible to quasi hush up Islamist terror, he shrinks not only from the solution of the problem, nein, he is part of the problem. Then for what have you angst? Do you believe that if we proceed effectively against the terror, then there will be yet further terror attacks? I say to you: Your cowardly diffidence provides for the ever further escalation of the situation. Barbaric Islamism cannot be fought with appeasement but only with an absolute resolution, and it is high time for that.

If we now show no severity [Härte], we will lose this fight and under no circumstances will the AfD delegation permit that. And please do not do as you would now do everything, by giving away the state of law, so as to combat Islamist terrorism. This is by means to be the case. In the face of the existential threat which proceeds from Islamist terror, the citizens no longer have any understanding for your hesitant, ja, almost helpless actions. Politics has the duty to adapt the fundamentals of the law to the real security situation and, on occasion, create anew. And therefore: Do not complain, but finally act! Thus only will we win the fight against the terror.

We must now at last effectively defend our borders so that no additional Islamist terrorists stream into our country.

            Konstantin von Notz (Greens): The man was an Austrian!

The Syrian terrorist in Dresden would never have been able to commit his knife attack, Herr von Notz, if the Federal government, as demanded for years by the AfD, had effected the defense of our our borders. Your policy of open borders provides for Islamist terror in Germany and in Europe and thereby for suffering and death. There must now finally be an end to that!

Our security officials presently categorize 619 Islamists as those posing a threat [Gefährder]. All of these Gefährder want to commit a terror attack. More than half of them stay in Germany, the majority are free at large. Neither foot chains nor observation helps to de-fuse these ticking time bombs. For at least five years we have known that, and the attack in Dresden has again poignantly and bitterly confirmed that.

I ask you: How many innocent people must then still fall victim to the Islamist terror before you finally take effective measures? We must as quickly as possible reduce to nothing the potential radius of action of potential mass murderers. That is only possible with the measures which our delegation already for long demands: All Gefährder are to be taken immediately into deportation status and deported. Where this is not possible, we require finally a nationwide, unified basis in law for long-term Gefährder custody. Islamist Gefährder must so long be behind bars as until they present no more danger to the life and health of our families. So as to implement this as quickly as possible, the AfD delegation this week has brought into the Bundestag a corresponding motion. I advise you: Vote for this motion.

            Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU): Or else?

Who now still refuses effective measures to combat the terror bears co-responsibility for every future attack.

            Peter Beyer (CDU/CSU): Stop! That is intolerable!

And so that nothing be misunderstood: No one has anything against Moslems who want to live with us in peace and share in our basic order of values. However, who puts the Koran above our laws, who despises our state, who preaches hate or actively fights our society,

            Canan Bayram (Greens): Like the AfD!

for them we have a clear message:

            Ulla Jelpke (Linke): We too!

We, the citizens of this country, will defend our values and the art and ways of how we live against your inhumane ideology of hatred. And we will be victorious. Therefore, adapt yourselves, or go!

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

 

Uwe Witt, October 29, 2020, Home Office

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/186, pp. 23508-23509.

Right honorable Frau President. Worthy colleagues. Dear viewers at the TV sets.

The colleagues of the FDP lay before us a motion in which they want to take into ready account the development in the labor market. Their assertion, “Digitalization is not only one of the most important drivers of growth of the present economic development, but also an engine of social transformation and change in the world of work”, nevertheless indicates a striking mis-estimate of the situation. Since the holy cow of “digitalization” has some by-products which for the labor market are unfortunately extremely toxic. I know that the FDP wishes to especially distinguish itself here. But like everything in life, digitalization also has two sides; namely, light and shadow.

The light, in this case the possibility of a home office, gave many people during the first lockdown the opportunity to work. There is here – I concur with the FDP – a need to expand and to adapt legal regulations. The shadow cast by digitalization is nevertheless significantly greater than the just mentioned light. Digitalization transforms. However, the small office expert in the large organization will be transformed not into an IT skilled worker but into one of the unemployed.

As stated in a study by the ING-DiBa, there are in Germany about 3.5 million office workers and assistants in related occupations; around 3 million of these workplaces are in the mid-term endangered by advancing digitalization. The study sees similar developments in other occupational fields. In regards the total 30 million social insurance obligated and marginal employees, the authors of the study expect just over 18 million of the studied workplaces in Germany to be in danger. That is 59 percent of the German labor market which is endangered, mid- and long-term.

            Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): There are any number of studies!

If I am directly concerned with the results of studies: – I do not know whether you know this, Herr Birkwald – The consulting firm of PricewaterhouseCoopers has reported that for Great Britain the home office could be the origin of a total economic damage to the sum of 16.7 billion euros. For when workers increasingly work in a home office, that has effects upon the value creation chain and the corresponding eco-system of a business in the offices of the larger firms. That pertains to the restaurant trade for which the workers so far primarily have been supplied at mid-day, those in retail trade, transport businesses as well as gas stations for commuters, facility management, etc., etc.

As you in your motion correctly state, the Corona crisis has contributed to the acceleration of digitalization. Yet no beautiful, new world of work arises, as your motion suggests, but a scenario which has unintended consequences for the labor market and society in general and for the individual employee and his family circumstances in particular.

            Matthias W. Birkwald (Linke): Thus back to tablet and stylus?

            Beate Müller-Gemmeke (Greens): The AfD wants to advance tele-work.

The mixing of work and private life – something, besides, which over 50 percent of home office workers evaluate negatively – is a problem. Which you in your motion regard through rose-red spectacles. Clearly, it might appear to be sensible or a relief for one or other workers to be able to take care of family and children during the day – but at what price?

In reality, the everyday still appears thus: 6 o’clock in the morning call up the e-mail, then get the kids to day-care or school, two or three hours on the laptop, prepare lunch, pick up the kids, attend to the household chores, meanwhile yet again the laptop to clear up the work, get the kids ready for bed and until late at night finish up the work for the firm – in my eyes, no family-friendly perspective.

I come to an end, Frau President. – For that, you, dear FDP, wish to weaken working hours guidelines and in place of a daily maximum work time fix an identical weekly maximum work time. You thereby open the doors to a 24/7, round-the-clock, constant availability. Your motion is in need of being discussed in committee with the expected draft law from the House of Hubertus Heil, the draft  for the mobile work law, so as to be brought into harmony with labor protection and labor protection regulations.

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

[trans: tem]

 

 

 

           

 

 

Steffen Kotré, October 29, 2020, Bergkarabach

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/186, pp. 23436-23437.

Right honorable Herr President. Right honorable ladies and gentlemen.

The Armenians’ defensive fight in Bergkarabach is a just war. Azerbaijan is conducting an illegal war of aggression and in that is supported by Turkey, as we today have already laid out.

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Herr Hampel has described that quite otherwise.

They commit war crimes, they employ internationally outlawed cluster bombs, they bomb civilian targets, – with civilian victims as the consequence – cultural sites and churches. The Church of the Redeemer in Shushi was twice attacked, presumably with NATO weapons. My colleague Stefan Keuter received an over-looked piece of metal in the area which made that plain – a NATO weapon, as was said.

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Have you once explained that to Herr Hampel?

Prisoners of war were killed and presumably even beheaded. Turkey sends Islamist mercenaries from Syria and Iraq and thereby supports international terrorism.

Azerbaijani representatives have repeatedly spoken of driving out the Armenians and even threatened their annihilation. I am convinced that the national Islamist Erdogan dreams of an all Ottoman empire on a greater scale in which the Armenians plainly have no place. The Turks, as the people who perpetrated the Armenian genocide of 1915-1916, still have not related themselves to that, and have still not worked that out, and the Armenians have not forgotten that.  The Armenians are fully in their rights to defend their home. It is not to be expected of them to be under Ottoman rule or under other foreign rule. The U.S. foreign ministry lists considerable human rights violations in Azerbaijan: Arbitrary proceedings against journalists, arbitrary arrests, torture, murder in police custody, systemic government corruption, and many more other matters.

On the other hand, there have been free elections in Bergkarabach. There rules an admittedly young…democracy. We could see that for ourselves on earlier trips. We have discovered Armenian culture in the greater part of Bergkarabach and the Armenians have been settled in most of the territory for centuries. The few mosques, cared for by the Armenians, are of Persian origin. Josef Stalin in 1921, against the then current law, arbitrarily and illegally incorporated Bergkarabach into Azerbaijan.

Should that nowadays be recognized as legal [rechtsstaatlich]? Bergkarabach has a state territory, a state people and a state authority. It is correspondingly a popular vote that was carried out.

The Armenians in Bergkarabach are in acute danger. We have been able to apprise ourselves of that in the area. I was there, with my colleague Stefan Keuter, in contrast to you. We have formed a realistic picture on the ground.   

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): That exactly is the scandal!

We are doing something; yet the Federal government and many who are present here today say you want to again only talk and again do nothing.

            Johann David Wadephul (CDU/CSU): He knows nothing of what he is saying!

Yet that is much too little.           

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Yet Herr Hampel said that we can do nothing!

Haste is imperative and neutrality implies assent. And who thinks he can keep himself neutral, he is in error.

Erdogan is instituting trouble in northern Iraq, in Syria, in Libya and he is stepping forward aggressively against the West, lately against French President Macron. A policy of appeasement has never yet been continued [weitergeführt], ladies and gentlemen.

Germany has outfitted Turkey with modern armaments; that was always inexcusable, but there now must be an end to that.  

When does the Federal government cease support of Turkey at all levels? That is the question. And when does the Federal government engage and actively commit itself to human rights, for peace and for a people’s right to self-determination? We demand precisely that, the securing of the people’s right to self-determination, and for Bergkarabach.

            Manuel Sarrazin (Greens): Herr Hampel demands something quite different.

We demand immediate steps to really – I say, really – end the bloodletting; thus, not only with words, but also plainly with actions. Bergkarabach requires no observers. On that account, we in this place demand real measures: An arms embargo, sanctions, freezing of accounts and travel bans on the responsible antagonists of the war; naturally, the immediate ending of the EU’s accession negotiations with Turkey and the ending of the customs union. The agreed armistice must be secured, in case of emergency by the UN’s blue helmets with a robust mandate.

Many thanks.

 

[trans: tem]

 

           

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tobias Peterka, October 30, 2020, Children and Sexual Violence

German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 19/187, pp. 23551-23552. 

Good morning, Herr President. Right honorable colleagues.

This topic is so unappealing that one wishes that it need be dealt with less often. Children are the weakest members of our society, those most in need of a defense to which ordinarily all other groups have risen. Yet in the final consequence, children for us are the ultimo ratio. For without them, there is no future and the best, sustainable, equalized, correctly speaking society would cease to exist.

            Claudia Roth (Greens-Augsburg): Oje!

Yes, Frau Lambrecht, you have finally become active. Yet for much too long have you hesitated, and even justified that the sexual abuse of children remained an offense, instead of being evaluated as a crime. Now then the hectic Aktionismus; since the criticism, and from the AfD, simply was much too loud.

            Michael Grosse-Böhmer (CDU/CSU): I certainly have heard nothing of it!

– Then take a look at the internet, what was written there in June.

You sell the draft law as a comprehensive assessment. Na ja, those of the youth office, for example, would necessarily receive more disposable means. Since naturally the worst of offenses can occur in the pastel painted quarters of professors, yet certainly in the problematic neighborhoods it must all the more be able to demand access to families. Child and youth aid cooperation obligations, as demanded by the Greens in their motion, are well and good; yet this does not help if in practice the sails are struck for the least little crisis of cultural conflict. Sexual violence against children is to be elucidated and dealt with as equally offensive in all directions and in every milieu.

The government’s draft concentrates on the fair upgrade of offenses. And the clarification that there is to be permitted no sexual use of children, in which the term “abuse” will be abolished, is naturally completely correct. There are, however, in the policies of the Green movement, also other points of view.

Reform of judicial procedures, training of youth and family magistrates, qualifications for procedural assistants, all of that is to the good, quite clearly. However, on which account sexualized violence without bodily contact, thus when the child only must witness, will without re-qualification be more lightly penalized, troubles me and is incomprehensible to me. The psychic damage quite clearly appears to belong as a decisive element.

Why only one year’s sentence for these swapping service operators? Today’s digital possibilities now all the more call up the worst of the perpetrators. We know the cases in Lügde and Münster where that was marked. An extra offense with a significantly higher minimal sentence would have been sensible here. The CSU is already going in the right direction.

Frau Lambrecht, you are again working simply as driven. I would have – you of course are not listening – wished for more verve there; for example, the prohibition of serial probations. There is an AfD draft law on that. Do not continue to grasp this with forceps. It would be wonderful here to be able to accompany. You yourself are now proceeding – as you write in the draft law – to produce more probations by means of harder sentences. Congratulations. With our draft law, that would not have been so.

We also demand, for example, a sex offender registry which is open to public inspection. There is for long something similar in the U.S.A. That would have been a brave advance; that also of course pertains to us. We also require more IT people for the police. If we can then provide that the police, youth authorities and judges in our country are treated less like children and no longer placed under a general suspicion, then such legal initiatives may also display some effect.

Many thanks.

 

 

[trans: tem]