Kassel (dpa/lhe) – The “Initiative 19 February Hanau” was honored on Monday with the Georg Leber Prize for civil courage from the Bauen-Agrar-Umwelt trade union. Members accepted the award, worth 10,000 euros, at the opening of the IG BAU trade union day in Kassel. The organization was founded after a 43-year-old German shot nine people for racist motives in Hanau on February 19, 2020. He then killed his mother and himself.
“The February 19 initiative consistently shows the racism in our society and calls for everything that still has to happen before we finally manage to achieve a society free of discrimination,” said Serpil Midyatli, chairwoman of the SPD in Schleswig-Holstein and laudator deputy chairperson of the SPD. She boldly asks uncomfortable, but nonetheless the right and important questions. “It is thanks to the use of the initiative that the murders are processed as a political act,” emphasized Midyatli.
