Arno Bausemer, AfD MEP from Saxony-Anhalt and a member of the Committee on the Internal Market in the European Parliament, explains:
“After the physical suffering in December, these letters now amount to a second attack on the victims’ psyche. The fact that the competent public prosecutor’s office now says it cannot prevent the sending of these letters by the imprisoned Taleb A. for legal reasons is yet another mockery of the victims. A few years ago, the European Commission ‘blessed’ us all with the so-called General Data Protection Regulation, which is supposed to guarantee the protection of our data. In practice, that often means bizarre bureaucracy. It would be urgently appropriate here to ensure that the data of the victims—some of whom are appearing as joint plaintiffs in the proceedings against the attacker—are protected from misuse. Such misuse and the sending of letters from the attacker to the victims must in any case be stopped immediately!
The state must practice victim protection here and shield the victims of the attack from the perpetrator’s perverse psychological games. This data-protection scandal is further proof that our liberal constitutional state is increasingly becoming a laughing stock for criminals. Under the so-called ‘mirror punishment,’ the attacker would have had no chance to be writing letters more than half a year after the crime in his home country, because he would already have received the death penalty for his sick deed.”
Mary Khan, AfD MEP from Brandenburg and a member of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee, adds:
“Years of state failure in asylum and migration policy made the attack in Magdeburg possible in the first place. Now the madness continues. The victims of the horrific attack in Magdeburg must not be hurt a second time by the attacker’s letters. The European Victims’ Rights Directive guarantees victims protection against secondary victimization as well as the protection of personal data to prevent unwanted contact. That German authorities do not consider themselves capable of protecting victims of Islamist terror is unacceptable!
The ESN Group will contact the EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice and the Rule of Law today to demand a clarification vis-à-vis the state government of Saxony-Anhalt. I very much hope that Justice Commissioner Michael McGrath can persuade the CDU-led government of Rainer Haseloff to act immediately here in the interests of the victims. Beyond party politics, it should go without saying that we do everything in our power to protect our fellow citizens.”
