Politiker als Vorbilder

.:: Politicians as role models?::.

Ronald Koch

Koch´s right-wing-attitude became famous in the campaign against dual citizenship, by which he in 1999 nationwide catapulted himself in the headlines and the Hessian governmental election won. With the collection of signatures against the new citizenship law of the red-green coalition he called openly and blithely to nationalist and xenophobic prejudices.

Koch has openly admitted that he by this simply wanted to raise awareness. An opposition leader from Hessen has problems to appear in the media “and at that times came television crews that would otherwise never have had reported about our campaign," he is quoted the Süddeutsche Zeitung. And in a long interview published as a book by the conservative journalist Hugo Mueller-Vogg he confesses that "media campaign against the petition" was much more important "than any billboard, any of the CDU's own activity in this period." "The debate about immigration, would I lead again every day, it was right and necessary."

The insolence, with which Koch trivializes his own violations of the law, while he requires draconian punishments for small criminals and preaches the Youth “Authority, discipline and performance", is reminiscent of the Republican Rights in the U.S. and the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

Also, the association anti-Semitic approval of "Jew" with "money", wich first appeared in his myth of the "Jewish legacies', seems to be anchored deep in Koch´s subconscious. That became obvious last December in the Hessian state parliament when Koch set equal the criticism of super-rich with the discrimination of Jews. Because the Ver.di chairman Frank Bsirske had referred the names of some (commonly known) billionaires to justify his call for a wealth tax Koch saw in this a stigmatization of the rich "with a new form of star on the chest." His remarks caused a commotion.

Even in the recent election campaign Koch rode the hobby-horses of the rights. His central theme was the internal security - upgrading of the police, tough and stricter law enforcement, ubiquitous surveillance, in short everything you long know from the arsenal of law-and-order policies.

When the Hessian CDU passed aside millions from the Political Parties Act and impudent this with alleged "Jewish legacies", Koch himself had shamelessly lied to the public.
Looking back he sees this as trivial. "The remonstrance of having informed too late have a lot of politicians in their lives someday to make", he commented on his behaviour in conversation with Mueller-Vogg.

He further on abused the judicial system for his party-political purposes.

2001, the Hessian judicial searched through the office and private rooms of the Fischer biographer Wolfgang Kraushaar and confiscated computer hard drives,
in the hope to find something incriminating against Joschka Fischer. The pretext for the action constituted a criminal investigation for alleged false statement which the Frankfurt public prosecutor's office Affairs had opened against the incumbent Minister for Foreign.

The green top politician was suspected, to have said the untruth about his role as street fighter thirty years ago.

Wolfgang Schäuble

1999 Schäuble, initiated a petition for action against the reform of German citizenship law. The campaign stood under the slogan "Integration yes - double citizenship no ".
In December 2005, Schäuble suggested to use statements of tortured during the investigation of the security authorities. Especially in the "war on terror" statements of foreign prisoners, on whom torture can not be excluded, may could be helpful.

To enable the use the Armed Forces for security functions within the national borders (including the firing of civil aircraft), Schäuble calls for a amendment of the referenced constitutional law.

The firing of civil aircraft is according to the President of the Federal Constitutional Court, Hans-Jürgen Papier, unthinkable. [2] Schäuble said that constitutional judges are not legitimized democratically for giving advice. To confine protected areas by constitutional law is the job for the legislature.

The within the highway toll Act required strict earmarking of toll data for pure billing purposes should according to Schäuble be repealed by a corresponding amendment for accessing to the security authorities in their investigative purposes.

After the decision of the Federal Court that there is currently no legal basis for online searches of computers, Schäuble calls to change on the Code of Criminal Procedure, the BKA-law, the police laws of the countries in accordance with Article 13 and constitutional law, which guarantees the inviolability of homes to enable the use of the so-called "Federal Trojan possible.

During a meeting of the German Bundestag, on 2 December 1999, Schäuble was asked on his contacts with the arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber. Schäuble said at a public hearing before the German Bundestag that he had at "sometime in late summer or early autumn of 1994" at a discussion evening in a hotel in Bonn [...], met a Mr. who presented himself to me as a company director. I later found that this was Mr. Schreiber. [...] In the former event, I met Mr. Schreiber. That's it. "

On 10 January of 2000, Schäuble admitted, to have received, by the meanwhile issued to arrest arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber in 1994, a cash donation of 100,000 D-Mark for the CDU.

On 31 January 2000 he admitted a further meeting with Schreiber in 1995. The CDU treasurer had accounted the amount as "other income"

Beginning September 2000 Schäuble apologized in front of the Bundestag to the the German public that "under the responsibility of the CDU laws were broken." Furthermore, he also apologized "to the" Bundestag that he had concealed in December 1999, a part of the truth about his contact with the arms dealer Karlheinz Schreiber.

Walter Steinmeier (Außenminister)

According to the German investigating officers, Kurnaz was never acting terroristic, but only at the wrong place at the wrong time. Because the U.S. agencies basically shared this view, the United States soon have offered Kurnaz' return to Germany

According to the former U.S. special-ambassador and Guantanamo envoy Pierre-Richard Prosper Murat Kurnaz was planned to be released since 2002, what should also have been aware to the German government. Contrary to the statements of present and former Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs Chancellery Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier the German Federal Government had not made efforts for a release.

The case of Murat Kurnaz is currently the case of two committees of inquiry of the Bundestag. "The committee should clarify which efforts have been made in the case of Murat Kurnaz by the federal government to offer Murat Kurnaz assistance and to achieve his release. In particular, it has to be clarified whether and what offers by U.S. authorities for his release has been made, whether they were rejected or remained unused by the German side, and if so, for what reasons. It also should be clarified in this context which of the German authorities of the federal government were involved and who bear the responsibility for such a decision."

In the report of the CIA's Special Committee of the European Parliament it is noted that the German Federal Government had refused in 2002 the offering by the United States for release Kurnaz,. This was done even though the intelligence of both states were convinced of his innocence. The political responsibility for the case, according to press reports, was the former chief of the Federal Chancellery and Commissioner for the Intelligence Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Steinmeier denies these allegations, There had been no official offer resilient by the United States and there was no connection between the decision, Kurnaz because terrorism suspicion not to allow returning to the Federal Republic and his long detention in Guantanamo.

On 1 March 2007 a scandal arose during the so-called BND investigation committee, as important files on the case of the abducted Murat Kurnaz vanished. These were the documents of the Bremer Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and the former Federal Government showed that Kurnaz still represented a security risk - and this is in contrast to the assessment of BND employees who had interrogated him at Guantanamo. The other interviews were postponed.

Otto Schily(1993 - 1998 Bundesinnenminister)

He was responsible for the hasty introduction of biometric ePass with immature technology and without parliamentary legitimacy, for the expansion of German and European surveillance system at the expense of civil rights and liberties, for his persistent efforts to the erosion of privacy and informational self-determination under the guise security and combating terrorism - key word: "anti-terrorist" laws, also known as "Otto catalogs referred to, for his significant involvement in the Great eavesdropping-attack and for his attacks on the independence of the Federal Data Protection Commissioner.

With the so-called anti-terrorist laws, for which Schily stands like no other person, police and secret services have expanded duties and powers. This allows employees in the so-called life-essential or defense intelligence agencies to be subjected to security checks - sometimes even their life partners and their social environment. Affects institutions and security-sensitive positions, literally it is said in the law, "which are vital and significant for the functioning of the community and which disturbance would emerge disquiet in large parts of the population." By this are meant bodies responsible for supplying of the population, such as energy companies, hospitals, chemical plants, railways, post office, banks, telecommunications companies, as well as radio and television stations may be affected.

Migrants, particularly Muslims among them, are almost by law under general suspicion, declared to increased security risks and subjected to a rigid monitoring system - just think of the collection of biometric fingerprints and voice profiles on intelligence rule requests, the eased extradition and deportation. Without real evidence that they are more linked to terror than Germans, migrants are often - in violation of the principle of equality - subjected to a special degrading treatment, which for many may have existential consequences.

The "anti-terrorist" laws lead to a disastrous loosening of privacy, as Schily whished, who already thinks that protection of data is in any case too "excessive". Several of the anti-terrorist measures show characteristics of a not declared state of emergency and of an authoritarian prevention state. The presumption of innocence, one of the main achievements of law in this safety concept, loses it´s power limiting function. The man becomes a potential safety risk who must prove his harmlessness and innocence - while Otto Schily declares the supposed security to a super-fundamental right which puts the real fundamental rights of citizens - as defensive rights against interference by the State in the shade.

He even did not stop concerning of claims from the extremist arsenal of dictatorships: So would love to put "dangerous" people without concrete suspicion in securing preventive detention. Schily the following state conservation projects: By building a common antiterrorist center and planning of creating a central "Islamists file" he has laid the foundation for compositing of a Data collection of all Secret Services and the Federal Criminal Office. An even closer networking would mean the repeal of the constitutional requirement of separation of police and secret services - after all it was a consequence of the bitter experiences with the Gestapo during National Socialism.

Schily has advocated that all telecommunications contacts - whether by phone, SMS, email or internet - for fighting terrorist and crime in Germany and Europe to be retained for at least twelve months.

Even the freedom of the press is far from being secured before Schily: So he justifies undifferentiated and most persistently the most controversial searches of the editorial offices of the monthly magazine "Cicero" and the home of a journalist by the Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), for which Schily had given the authorization.

The former German Interior Minister Otto Schily (SPD) had due to undeclared income addition, pay a fine of 22,000 euros. This was decided by the Bureau of the German Bundestag. Schily refuses until up to date to disclose income from his work as a lawyer. After a consensual decision of the Federal Bureau Ex-Interior Minister Otto Schily has to pay a fine of amounting to three months of his diets pay. This is what the press office of the Bundestag published. The parliamentarian after giving another deadline did not do his duty to disclose his addition income activities beside his mandate in accordance with the rules of conduct of the parliament; it is said in the statement. The fine is a sum of around 22,000 euros. The sum is lying under the half of the maximum possible. At the end of February the SPD MP already has been reprehended, because he did not disclosed attorneys' fees and by this violated the rules of conduct of parliamentarians.

Manfred Kanther (1993 - 1998 Bundesinnenminister)

Kanther was considered the embodiment of the law-and-order politics. As interior minister, he, by his hard line on asylum policy and the fight against crime, earned the nickname "black sheriff. The fact that this man now, who went with unrelenting hardship against refugees and demanded draconian penalties for petty crimes, has been convicted himself because of a law violation, shows that he´s dealing with law and order was not too accurate when it comes to enforce his own political interests.

As a leading CDU functionary he violated even against criminal laws: About 20 million DM of dubious origin in secret party accounts he first moved illegally to Switzerland and then moved to Liechtenstein. The million profits were secretly transferred to Germany and declared perfidious as "anonymous Jewish legacies".

The CDU spent it also on this xenophobic "Double Pass" campaign in 1999 which flushed Roland Koch to Office of the Prime Minister of Hessen. What reminds to clichés about the mafia only cost Kanther a monetary punishment which he can pay easily. Thanks to not only allegorical blindness of Justitia his fat pension as minister remains.

On Monday the Wiesbaden Regional Court sentenced the former German Interior Minister Manfred Kanther because of commonly committed betrayal of confidence to one and a half year of imprisonment on probation. Kanther must also pay 25,000 euros to the state treasury.