Dismay at motorcade
FDP: “Should consider criminal prosecution”
04/05/2022 02:49 am
On the day that pictures of the war atrocities in Bucha became public, a pro-Russian motorcade rolled through the German capital. Domestic politicians have a hard time with a general ban on such demonstrations. But there are ways to hold defenders of Russia’s war of aggression accountable.
Domestic politicians from the federal and state governments have reacted with outrage to public expressions of sympathy for the Russian attack on Ukraine and for President Vladimir Putin. “In view of the atrocities and the pictures of the past few days, I personally cannot understand how one can take sides with a war criminal,” North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul told the “Rheinische Post”.
The background is a motorcade with Russian flags on Sunday in Berlin. Unlike many other countries, Germany is characterized by “the fact that peaceful protests are not beaten down by the police, but protected,” emphasized the CDU politician Reul. The car parade in Berlin was registered as a demonstration against the “currently increasing discrimination against Russian-speaking people in our city”.
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier told the editorial network Germany: “Such a car parade is unbearable and should not take place like this anymore.” But he would be careful with bans, but one could impose conditions for such a gathering, such as a ban on honking or a limit on the number of participants, according to the SPD politician.
Public approval of aggressive war is punishable by law
The FDP interior expert Stephan Thomae and Federal Justice Minister Marco Buschmann pointed out that public approval of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine constitutes a criminal offence. “Therefore, the possibility of criminal prosecution should be examined in any case,” Thomae told the “Rheinische Post”. Buschmann told the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger” that paragraph 140 of the Criminal Code provides for fines and imprisonment of up to three years.
The motorcade drove through Berlin on the day that the killing of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha came to light. Against this background, Thomae called the parade “macabre and tasteless”. According to the police, around 400 vehicles took part. Flags in the Russian colors of white, blue and red could be seen on numerous cars. There are also isolated flags of the Soviet Union, the Russian Air Force and the black, gold and white flag of the Russian Tsarist Empire, which is popular among Russian neo-Nazis. According to Berlin’s Secretary of State for the Interior, Torsten Akmann, a so-called Z symbol to support the war of aggression in Ukraine was also shown. The car had been pulled out, emphasized Berlin’s governing mayor Franziska Giffey. The process will be prosecuted. The Russian ambassador in Berlin, Andriy Melnyk, had on Monday on twitter expressed his horror at the “auto parade of shame”.