BERLIN -- When German comedian Idil Baydar heard last week that investigators suspect police may have been involved in sending her neo-Nazi death threats, she was aghast. She was especially distressed to learn that a police link had been known for at least nine months and she had not been told. Instead, she had been informed that the investigation into the hate-filled text messages she received throughout 2019 was closed.
"I
don't know who to trust or believe anymore," said the 45-year-old actress.
"I am completely in shock."
Baydar
is one of more than two dozen German public figures threatened over the past
two years in missives signed with references to Nazi or neo-Nazi groups. In
2018, it emerged that a police computer was used to access information on
lawyer Seda Başay-Yıldız shortly before she received threats containing
personal details. Now, revelations that police computers in Frankfurt and
Wiesbaden were also used pull data on Baydar and left-wing politician Janine
Wissler have triggered uncomfortable questions for Germany about racism and
far-right networks in its institutions.
While
suspicions of a police role in the threats have not been confirmed, the scandal
forced the police chief in the state of Hesse to resign this month. It follows
reports of extremism within Germany's special forces, which led the defense
minister to disband one combat unit and announce a restructuring. And it has
added further urgency to the debate already underway on racial profiling,
systemic racism and other concerns prompted by the global Black Lives Matter
movement.
Meanwhile,
left-wing and minority politicians, journalists and lawyers have continued to
receive new threats.
State
Interior Minister Peter Beuth faced pressure from lawmakers as the scandal grew
this past week.
"These
threats attack every single one of us and are unbearable," he told the
Hesse parliament.
He said
at least 27 public figures have been threatened in 67 messages, most of them
emails from the same address. The bulk of the messages were signed "NSU 2.0"
- an abbreviation for the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground that murdered
at least 10 people in Germany between 2000 and 2007. The threats Baydar
received came as texts and were signed "S.S. Ostubaf," a senior Nazi
rank.
"It
is outrageous that these threats could possibly be linked to data requests
within the police systems," Beuth said, though he has stressed the police
link is circumstantial rather than "causal."
What
investigators know is that personal information had been accessed from police
computers in a "very timely manner," said Frankfurt prosecutor Noah
Krüger. And some of the recipients of the threats were targeted "very
specifically," he said.
Baydar,
whose comic roles needle at life as a minority in Berlin, is no stranger to
threats. But the eight texts she got throughout 2019 stood out for containing
personal details, including the name of her mother, whom the sender also
threatened to kill.
"On
the internet, you can come across so many threats, but when it has my private
data, it's a different game," she said.
She only
learned last week, after a Frankfurter Allgemeine journalist called, that
authorities had known since October that an illicit data request from a
Wiesbaden police precinct coincided with a March 2019 threat against her. The
Frankfurter Rundschau newspaper reported separately that data had also been
requested from police computers ahead of threats against Wissler.
"I
feel neglected, like my life has no priority," Baydar said.
She
added that regardless of whether police officers were involved in the threats,
"we have to have a discussion about racist structures in the police. This
is a discussion which is happening globally."
Many
German officials push back strongly against suggestions that there might be
racism or right-wing networks within the country's police forces. Last month,
federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer described the notion of "latent
racism" in police ranks as "incomprehensible."
He has
also squashed a planned study into racial profiling, suggesting instead that
researchers look at violence against police officers - even as the NSU 2.0
threats dominated the headlines and questions over far-right networks in the
police mounted.
"It's
very hard in Germany to talk about racism in the state," said Baydar's
lawyer, Mehmet Daimagüler. "Now we think we are above it."
Daimagüler,
who also represents families of three NSU murder victims, said it's become
harder for Germans to explain away any racism as an imported problem, limited
to immigrant communities.
Last
month, two suspected neo-Nazis went on trial for the execution-style murder of
Walter Lübcke, a politician from Chancellor Angel Merkel's Christian Democrats.
"People
are starting to understand that racism is not only a problem for minorities,
but a threat to society at large," Daimagüler said. But taboos remain.
"Talking about police officers being racist is a complete collision with
Germany's modern self-definition," he said.
Experts
and lawmakers have also raised questions about the ability of police to
investigate of suspicious activity within their own ranks.
"In
Germany, there is no independent authority to investigate misconduct or
criminal offenses by police officers," said Rafael Behr, a professor at
the Police Academy in Hamburg. "State prosecutors don't have their own
executive personnel; they use police officers to investigate when other
officers are suspects in a criminal case."
In
Hesse, at least 61 officers have been investigated for far-right links,
according to an interior ministry response to questions from the left-wing Die
Linke party. As of June, about half had been cleared, while 30 were still under
investigation, according to the document. None had been charged.
As far
as the inquiry into neo-Nazi threats, an initial investigation into the illicit
data request on lawyer Basay-Yildiz - who had represented the family of an NSU
murder victim - unearthed WhatsApp chat groups where officers had shared
neo-Nazi content. Five officers were suspended and another left the force.
But no
charges have been brought related to the chat groups, the data requests or the
threats, according to prosecutors.
The
officers whose logins were used to request the data on the comedian, politician
and lawyer have been questioned, but prosecutors say there is no way to know if
those same people pulled the information.
"It
seems to be customary in a number of police stations that the first person in
the morning logs on and keeps the computer turned on, and all the other police
people on that shift use it," Krüger said.
He said
Baydar's case was closed in March based on a determination that there was
"no conclusive evidence linking it to an individual perpetrator at the
time."
Still,
it emerged in the parliament session this past week that not all officers on
shift when the victims' details were accessed had been questioned.
"In
cases like this one, the police know that they are always being watched
closely," Behr said. "But when you see how witnesses in Hesse have
been questioned very late or not at all, it fuels the debate whether these
colleagues have not been investigated as thorough as other suspects."
Hermann
Schaus, a lawmaker from the left-wing Die Linke party, described the level of
independence of the investigation as "highly problematic."
"Hesse
is a small state," he said. "They went to the same police academy.
They can't be objective."
Of the
threats made in recent days, he said: "It's probable that the sender or
the senders just of these new threats just wants to terrorize and frighten
people and doesn't want to act on it. But I am actually scared for the people.
I am scared for my colleague."
***Weber-Steinhaus
reported from Hamburg.