Dresden (dpa / sn) - On Friday, numerous people thought again of the Egyptian Marwa El-Sherbini, who was murdered in the Dresden district court out of xenophobia. As in the previous year, representatives of the judiciary, city and associations as well as citizens laid white roses in front of the building in memory of the bloody deed that shook the whole country 13 years ago.
At the time, the pharmacist had reported a man for racial insults. In the appeal hearing, in which she testified as a witness, the accused stabbed the pregnant 31-year-old with a knife on July 1, 2009 and also severely injured her husband - in front of their three-year-old son. The bloody deed had triggered horror in Germany and protests in the Islamic world. The perpetrator was later sentenced to life imprisonment for murder.
According to the statement, State Secretary Mathias Weilandt said that Marwa El-Sherbini and her memory have become an integral part of the collective memory of Saxony's judiciary. From this arises the responsibility to speak out against hate, to oppose racism and intolerance and to work together for a peaceful and non-violent coexistence of all people.
The Foreigners Council, the Association of Saxon Migrants Organizations (DSM) and the Alliance against Racism in Saxony called for resistance to everyday racism. On this day of remembrance, this is "more than sad," said the chairman of the Foreigners' Council, Eter Hachmann. Marwa was "a strong woman, a fighter" who clearly named racism. "We all have to do that."
Racism is "not a marginal phenomenon", such attitudes reach "deep into the middle of society". The consequences are evident in daily hostility, exclusion and attacks, for example on mosques in Leipzig, Halle and Chemnitz in recent months. "He exists, he destroys, he injures, he kills," said DSM Vice Azim Semizoğlu, referring to Marwa, but also to the attacks in Halle and Hanau. "And yet it has hardly made it into social consciousness."
In 2015, July 1st was declared a day against anti-Muslim racism in Germany. Since March, the green area in front of the Dresden Regional Court has been the Marwa El-Sherbini Park in honor of those killed out of xenophobia - a memorial is to be added in 2023.
