Frankfurt / Wiesbaden (dpa / lhe) – Frankfurt lawyer Seda Basay-Yildiz, who received the Ludwig Beck Prize for civil courage from the city of Wiesbaden this Friday, spoke out in favor of more dialogue between citizens and the police shortly before the award. “We have to talk to each other more. This is the only way to create trust,” she told the German press agency.
The lawyer, who had represented members of the victims of the right-wing extremist terrorist cell NSU as a co-plaintiff in the Munich NSU trial, was the first addressee of the “NSU 2.0” threat in 2018. During the investigation into these death threats, which were also pronounced against relatives of the lawyer, the existence of a chat group with right-wing extremist content in a Frankfurt police station was uncovered. The private and publicly inaccessible data were also accessed by a police computer.
A man was arrested in May as the alleged author. It is not yet clear whether he had helpers within the police force or whether he was “only” able to successfully pretend to be a police officer when making inquiries over the phone. The data of the left chairwoman Janine Wissler and the cabaret artist Idil Baydar had also been accessed by police computers in Wiesbaden before NSU 2.0 threatening letters.
“The reputation of the police has been damaged so much that I believe that every single officer is called upon more than ever to report racist tendencies within the police,” said Basay-Yildiz of the necessary moral courage within the police. “The decent majority must act now.”
Basay-Yildiz has long been demanding precise clarification. “We must not rely on politicians, as you can see in Hessen and also at the federal level,” she said. “In this respect, every single police officer in this country is called upon to act courageously. There must also be more dialogue between the citizen and the police.”
With the Ludwig Beck Prize, the city of Wiesbaden honors people, institutions or associations from all over the world who have campaigned with particular moral courage for the common good, peaceful coexistence of people, social justice and the basic principles of democracy and the rule of law.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210702-99-228643 / 2
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