Sunday 19th December 2021
Right-wing extremists at corona demos
Haldenwang fears new acts of violence
Constitutional protection chief Haldenwang is following the protest movement against the corona measures with concern. Although there is “a lot of mouth heroism” there, he still takes threats of violence seriously. Above all, the growing influence of right-wing extremists calls his authority on the plan.
The President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Thomas Haldenwang, does not rule out further acts of violence from the radicalized Corona protest milieu. When asked whether he feared attacks, Haldenwang told the newspapers of the Funke media group: “There is a lot of mouth heroism involved. Talking about violence and committing it is a difference. But just think of the homicide in Idar-Oberstein, where someone took a gun out of the spontaneous situation and shot another person in the gas station. “
He also considers such irrational outbursts of violence out of feelings of anger or powerlessness to be not unlikely in the future, said Haldenwang. When asked about possible murder plots, he added: “With violence-oriented 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 “occasional and in some regions a formative influence by right-wing extremists, so quasi a ‘right-wing extremization’ of the protest”.
He was also concerned about attacks on police officers and journalists during demonstrations. “We see attempts to intimidate political decision-makers and an extraordinary brutalization of the debate in the social media: From violent fantasies to death threats, which are directed not only against politicians, but also against scientists and doctors.”
In numerous cities, people took to the streets on Saturday to protest against the corona measures and the vaccination campaign. It remained largely peaceful.