According to a study, anti-Semitism and right-wing extremism are widespread in Thuringia. The protests against the Corona measures would have exacerbated the problem in 2021.
Erfurt (dpa/th) - The protests against the state corona measures and their appropriation by right-wing extremists contributed significantly to a growing anti-democratic milieu in Thuringia last year. This is the conclusion reached by the authors of the study "Thuringian Conditions 2021", which was presented on Friday in the state parliament in Erfurt. In eleven contributions, scientific analyzes and assessments based on civil society expertise and from the perspective of those affected are presented.
The total number of extreme right-wing activities documented in the Free State in 2021 had more than doubled compared to the previous high in 2016, explained Romy Arnold from the Mobile Advice in Thuringia, which belongs to the publishers. Franz Zobel from the Ezra victim counseling center complained that more than 100 politically motivated violent crimes, most of which were related to the corona pandemic, had not been recorded as such by the authorities. "For more than two years now, experts from science, politics and civil society have been pointing to the underlying right-wing ideologies such as anti-Semitism, conspiracy narratives and threatening myths."
Axel Salheiser from the Jena Institute for Democracy and Civil Society summarized the results of the study that combating "ideologies of inequality" and anti-democratic attitudes - above all racism and anti-Semitism - remains an urgent permanent task that politics and civil society are taking on with all consistency would have to ask.
