Friday December 31, 2021
Radicalization among vaccination opponents
Minister warns of terrorist “structures”
There have already been calls for violence and acts by opponents of the corona policy. Thuringia’s interior minister warns that part of the scene could become more radical. Terrorist “structures” were already emerging.
Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier expects a further radicalization of parts of the opponents of corona policy and vaccinations. He does not believe that the vaccination opponents would get even greater influx through the introduction of mandatory vaccination, Maier told the dpa. “But what I fear is that there will be radicalization within the group of those who oppose the vaccination – including the use of force. I actually fear that,” said Maier, who is also Vice-Prime Minister and SPD state chairman in Thuringia.
Maier said that one should take into account the possibility of violence and referred to a case in Idar-Oberstein, where a customer shot a 20-year-old at a gas station in September because he had repeatedly advised him to wear a mask. Such a thing cannot be completely ruled out, Maier made clear. “It’s a serious threat.”
The SPD politician warned that terrorist structures could emerge. Right-wing extremists are playing in the cards that anti-vaccination opponents radicalized. “They want violence on the streets, that’s part of the strategy,” said Maier. In his opinion, there is currently no terrorism related to Corona policy. “But the structures are growing and you have to take that very seriously.”
Protection of the Constitution warns of “right-wing extremization”
In his view, right-wing extremists and right-wing populists are trying to turn people’s fears into political capital. “And that includes classic right-wing extremist structures that we know from the past. But of course and especially the AfD is trying to ride this wave,” said Maier. The Thuringian state association of the AfD with its boss Björn Höcke is classified as an object of observation by the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution and thus as definitely extremist.
For weeks there have been violent riots during demonstrations against the Corona measures. Politicians, scientists and doctors were threatened and vaccination centers attacked. The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, recently warned of further outbreaks of violence including terrorist attacks: “With violent right-wing extremists and in the radicalized Corona protest milieu, no scenario can be ruled out.”
But the security authorities are not inactive, as the recent raids in Dresden showed. There had been searches of six members of a Telegram chat group because of death threats against Saxony’s Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer. According to Haldenwang, there is “selective and in some regions a formative influence by right-wing extremists, that is to say a” right-wing extremization “of the protest”.