Anti-Semitism suspicion in “Live democracy”: Funding projects of the federal government should be checked

Research by the “Welt am Sonntag” is intended to show anti -Semitic and extremist statements in state -financed non -governmental organizations. The “Live Democracy Living” funding program is affected in accordance with the article (BMFSFJ). The funding program was launched in 2014 by the then Federal Minister of Family Affairs Manuela Schwesig (SPD).

The newspaper, partly, discloses anti -Semitic and insulting quotes that are said to come from officials whose organizations are funded with taxpayers.

For example, ISA Panz, initiator of the association “Partly EV” in Heidelberg, is said to have described Zionist Jews on platform X “illness”. Between 2020 and 2024, the association is said to have received 2.8 million euros in funding against Islam and Muslim hostility between 2020 and 2024.

Comments from Panz are particularly explosive on the network. Under a photo of the CHANUKKA candlestick at the Brandenburg Gate, he is said to have written: “Do we deteriorate to a Jewish state here?”. According to Wams, Panz commented on a contribution by the Federal Chancellor on the Holocaust Memorial Day: “Just disgusting, how can you only adjoin that?” According to the newspaper, he is said to have withdrawn from the club after the statements became known.

The report is open to further comments on organizations that are also funded. For example, officials and consultants of the organization Biwoc Rising, who received 800,000 euros in project funding as part of “Democracy”, have described the Hamas attack on Israel as “resistance to colonialism”. Israeli settlers were disparaged in severe anti -Semitic manians as “pigs without any dignity”. Biwoc Rising has not commented on the incidents.

In addition, according to the report, the promotion of clubs in the environment of the Islamist Milli-Görüs movement causes criticism. For example, the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs supports a prevention project by the Islamic Science and Education Institute (IWB), which is close to the Islamic Community Milli Görüs (IGMG) observed by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, writes the Wams.

The Union’s domestic spokesman, Alexander Throm, said the WAMS: “I expect the federal government to now check every single NGO exactly that wants to continue to be promoted by ‘Democracy Living’.” Further financing may only exist “with absolute loyalty to our state goals”. “In case of doubt, many of the NGOs will not receive any taxpayers’ funds in the future. Anti-Semitism and Israel hatred must lead to the exclusion from funding.”

Prien announces review

In the meantime, the Federal Government’s anti -Semitism officer, Felix Klein, is also said to have switched on. According to the Wams, Klein is in exchange with Family Minister Karin Prien (CDU).

Prien reacted to the German Press Agency on Saturday. “We will evaluate the program, check comprehensively and want to ensure that in the future means will be used more efficiently to strengthen the middle of society,” she said. Anyone who refers to public funds through the federal program “Living Democracy” by “committed to” firmly on the bottom of the democratic basic order. ” Hate and agitation would have lost nothing here, confirmed Prien. “We suspect that beneficiaries do not adhere to these rules.”

Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews, already called for consequences from the incidents. “I am convinced that under Minister Prien, these findings are also taken as an opportunity to comprehensively revise the program of revising democracy,” quotes the Wams. Schuster appeals to differentiate. It is important to look at exactly what or what is being encouraged “. “But it shouldn’t just be deleted or blindly shortened.”

The SPD member of the Bundestag, Helge Lindh, calls for the WAMS to determine the “constitutional loyalty of the funded organizations” in the future. The AfD MP Gottfried Curio, domestic spokesman for his party, calls for an “exclusion of any funding”, should be committed to extremist or anti-Semitic statements or connections between funded organizations.

However, according to the WAMS, the green and the left see no need for reform. Lamya Kaddor, Commissioner for Religious Policy in the Greens, referred to the “extensive content exams of the center receivers” to the Wams. Here it is the responsibility of the federal government to “continue to guarantee the necessary expertise and the corresponding awareness of the phenomena of anti -Semitism and Islamism in the test mechanisms”. Clara Bünger (left) called the criticism of the projects a “campaign from right”.