Düsseldorf (dpa / lnw) – After a series of suspensions of police officers in connection with right-wing extremist chat groups, a first case has reached the Higher Administrative Court (OVG) in Münster. After the administrative court in Düsseldorf had confirmed the suspension of a civil servant in mid-December by means of an urgent procedure, the police officer, according to the OVG, filed a complaint against this decision in the next instance on Tuesday.
The Düsseldorf police headquarters had withdrawn the officer from office on suspicion that she shared an attitude that ran counter to the basic democratic order. The administrative court confirmed this view. Accordingly, the officer received images on her mobile phone in four chat groups for months that “contained both unambiguous and unbearably tasteless allusions to actors and events during the National Socialist regime”. The Holocaust has been played down and Nazi victims like Anne Frank have been unbearably ridiculed. Other content is racist.
The policewoman is said to have not distributed the content herself, but left it on her mobile phone for more than ten months without distancing herself from it. The administrative court ruled that she had contacted her department with the contents – her claim that she had only noticed it shortly before was not credible.
The scandal surrounding right-wing extremist chats at the North Rhine-Westphalian security authorities has now expanded to more than 200 suspected cases. The Ministry of the Interior had put the number of suspended officials at 25 in mid-December.
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