Senior security and justice officials in Germany are torn by calls from human rights activists to study the use of racial discrimination by the police.
Earlier this year, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance recommended that the federal and state police in Germany commission a study on the use of racial discrimination, a xenophobic practice that activists say is widespread in the country.
Germany’s interior ministry, which oversees the federal police, initially accepted the idea, but a ministry spokesman backed down on Monday.
“The so-called racial profiling is not allowed. This is taught during initial and ongoing training, and it doesn’t happen, ”spokesman Steve Alter told reporters in Berlin.
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Interior Minister Horst Seehofer first wanted to wait for a report on “extremist and racist tendencies” among public servants that the German domestic intelligence agency was compiling before considering whether further steps were necessary, Alter said.
Riot police arrest a protester while evacuating a park in Berlin’s Kreuzberg district on May 1, 2020, during May Day protests amid the COVID-19 outbreak caused by the new coronavirus. (Photo by John MACDOUGALL / AFP) (Photo by JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP via Getty Images)
German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Monday night that the European Commission’s recommendation against Racism and Intolerance to study racial profiling in police surveillance was “correct and important, to get the latest facts” .
“It is my opinion that we should not refrain from the study that was originally planned,” Lambrecht said, adding that he would continue to press his case with Seehofer.
Debates over racial profiling and the broader issue of systemic racism in Germany have been amplified by global protests that followed the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man, in the United States. A white police officer pressed his knee to Floyd, 46, for nearly 10 minutes.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
