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Berlin: Ban on reporting attacks on Jews and gays meets with criticism


A ban on reporting attacks in Berlin to victims' associations has met with sharp criticism from data protection officials and politicians. "Problems with homophobia, anti-Semitism and hate violence cannot be solved by hiding them. It is unacceptable that victim and research associations are hindered in their valuable work for data protection reasons," complained spokeswoman for the fight against anti-Semitism Cornelia Seibeld, and the queer-political spokesman for the Berlin CDU parliamentary group, Stefan Evers, in a joint statement.

"That thwarts our entire work," criticized the chairman of the Maneo association, Bastian Finke. The association campaigns against anti-gay violence. The trust in the law enforcement authorities that has been built up with great effort is being damaged. The situation ended a proven cooperation to strengthen violence prevention work in Berlin.

"We were able to talk to the police, where to look carefully," he complained. In this way, targeted preventive measures were possible.

Rias: Jews rarely report incidents anyway
The manager of the research and information center for anti-Semitism, Benjamin Steinitz, complained that Jews hardly ever report anti-Semitic incidents anyway because they lack confidence in the criminal prosecution. Comprehensive situation reports have always been important in order to assess the threat situation in Berlin.

So far, victims' associations such as Maneo and Rias have compared the data from the police with the attacks reported to their offices in order to avoid double counting in reports on the situation picture.

Police fear conclusions about the identity of those involved
The background to the debate is a decision by the Berlin Attorney General's Office, as reported by the Berliner Zeitung. The data protection officer there had forbidden investigators to pass on anonymous data on criminal offenses such as attacks on Jews and homosexuals to private associations. He justified this with a lack of legal basis for such a process.

In addition, in a letter he pointed out that the age of those affected, the crime scene and even the course of the crime are personal data. In case of doubt, conclusions could be drawn about further data, such as the identity of those involved.

Photo: dpa/Jüdisches Forum für Demokratie und gegen Antisemitismus e.V.
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