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Wednesday 18 November 2020
Although the Bundestag will be closed to visitors on Wednesday, some are in the building. They are apparently lobbying MPs with the aim of influencing them when they vote on the Infection Protection Act, politicians report. The SPD and the CDU hold the AfD responsible for the action. The resignation is already requested.
On the day of the vote on the amended Infection Protection Act, visitors to the Bundestag caused irritation. Several deputies reported that people were smuggled in who tried to harass politicians and influence the vote on the Infection Protection Act. Several members of the Bundestag blame the AfD for this.
“#AfD politician @UdoHemmelgarn apparently smuggles his henchmen into the #Bundestag to harass MPs,” wrote CDU MP Kai Whittaker on Twitter. He called for the immediate resignation of the AfD politician.
SPD Secretary General Lars Klingbeil also held the AfD responsible for the action in “Spiegel”. In the plenary session, they disrupt and mock democratic processes, in front of the Bundestag they allied with right-wing protesters, he said. “And then he also smuggles his supporters into the corridors of the Reichstag, who are harassing free MPs there. Always with the stated aim of destabilizing our democratic system in mind. That is really a shame.” He described the behavior of the AfD as “absolutely undemocratic and unworthy.” He went on to say: “I have never seen anything like today on a day of session in the Bundestag.”
Party colleague Katja Mast tweeted: “People who sneaked into #Bundestag tried, among other things, to break into the offices of individual MPs.” The deputy leader of the SPD parliamentary group was “stunned.” “Preventing and pressuring freely elected members of parliament to vote is the last thing. The goal: to undermine democracy.”
Meanwhile, several thousand people took to the streets in Berlin against the changes to the Infection Protection Act. The amendment aims to place the crown’s restrictions on a clearer legal basis. Critics complain of widespread violations of fundamental rights.
Visitor presses Altmaier
A video posted on Twitter also shows a woman speaking to Economy Minister Peter Altmaier in a Bundestag corridor and recording him with a cell phone camera. According to information from dpa, the recording is authentic and documents a scene that took place in the Bundestag on Wednesday. The woman talks to Altmaier and says, among other things, apparently about the minister: “He has no conscience.” Altmaier responds that he represents his voters. “It can manifest itself, but my conscience is clear.”
FDP MP Konstantin Kuhle said he had met the same woman in front of the plenary hall. You asked him how he wanted to vote. He was not expecting a meeting at the moment and moved on. The woman had a guest ID on her jacket, as she would give it to visitors who had been searched by political groups or individual members of parliament. “This shows symptomatically that our democracy only works if you play by the rules,” said Kuhle, who also wrote on Twitter that people “had been smuggled in” and were harassing MPs.
The normally valid regulation, according to which MPs can bring six visitors without prior notice to the Bundestag, was suspended on Wednesday for security reasons. A spokesman for the Bundestag had said that visitors would still have to go through the security gate and that their personal details would be checked for anomalies in police databases.
Michael Grosse-Brömer, Parliamentary Managing Director of the Union parliamentary group in the Bundestag, told the news portal “The Pioneer”: “What happened here is not a trivial crime. Pressure on MPs and prevent them from freely exercising their mandate undermines the foundations of our democracy. ” Therefore, the Union will request clarification in the Council of Elders of the Parliament. The CDU politician said that it is necessary to clarify how and, if necessary, with what help these people entered the Bundestag.
The Parliamentary Managing Director of the AfD parliamentary group, Bernd Baumann, said that his parliamentary group had no evidence that AfD members had smuggled unauthorized persons. “If guests who have been regularly searched by individual members and who have been checked by the Bundestag have violated the house rules, we will investigate these allegations.”
Roth: “deeply disturbing aggressiveness”
Even before the vote, Greens politicians expressed concern about the increasing aggressiveness of opponents of the current Corona policy. “A lively and critical debate on Corona’s measures is correct and important and the right to demonstrate is a valuable asset,” said Bundestag Vice President Claudia Roth of Germany’s publishing network. However, “the aggressiveness” with which it is called “hindering or intimidating the parliamentarians in the free exercise of their mandates and even their employees” is “deeply worrying and unacceptable”.
The leader of the green parliamentary group Katrin Göring-Eckardt told the “Rheinische Post” that criticism and opposition to the laws were legitimate. “A limit has been exceeded if the deputies must be hampered or intimidated in the free exercise of their mandate.” She thinks it is “perfidious how right-wing groups in particular spread and incite conspiracy theories.” Like other members of the Bundestag before, Göring-Eckardt reported on the masses of incoming emails directed against the reform of the Infection Protection Act.
CSU regional group leader Alexander Dobrindt had reported 37,000 emails his office had received yesterday morning. The vast majority have identical passages in the text. It cannot be clarified who is behind it. The leader of the union parliamentary group Ralph Brinkhaus said: “Yes, we received a lot of emails. Of course there were spam emails. But there were also citizens who were concerned and to that extent it is part of normal parliamentary business.”
