Unpleasant incidents occurred around the commemoration of the racist riots in Rostock-Lichtenhagen. State protection is conducting several investigations – including against a victim.
Rostock (dpa / mv) – The attack with an unknown liquid on a resident in Rostock-Lichtenhagen employs the security authorities. According to the police, state security has taken over the investigation. There is a suspicion of a politically motivated crime and dangerous bodily harm, said a police spokesman in Rostock on Monday.
The background is that about four and a half hours before the attack, a picture of the victim was published on the Twitter account of the anti-fascist group Alerta Berlin. There it had been claimed that this man had given a Hitler salute during a demonstration in Lichtenhagen on Saturday. However, this cannot be seen exactly on the eight-second video sequence. The demo commemorated the racist riots in the same place 30 years ago.
The victim is now under investigation. “The state security is investigating because of the use of anti-constitutional symbols,” said Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Interior Minister Christian level (SPD) on Monday at the request of the German Press Agency. “If the 25-year-old actually showed the Hitler salute, he should have to answer for it in court.” The background to his behavior would have to be examined and appropriate measures taken.
The 25-year-old man was splashed with a previously unknown liquid during the attack on Saturday evening, which caused severe burning and reddening of the skin. According to the police, hooded perpetrators had knocked on the victim’s apartment window on the ground floor. When the resident opened the window, he was sprayed on his face and bare chest with the liquid, which is said to have smelled of chili or tabasco sauce. The perpetrators fled, the man came to a clinic, which he was able to leave again on Sunday.
A 14-year-old had shown a Hitler salute on Thursday at a commemoration event. When filming a police operation, he is said to have cycled into the picture and raised his right arm. The police corrected information that it was a 13-year-old boy who was not of criminal responsibility. In this case, too, the state security is investigating. According to the police, the Rostock public prosecutor’s office and the legal guardians are involved.
“The fact that the Hitler salute is now being shown at the commemoration event for the Lichtenhagen pogrom is shameful,” explains level. It clearly indicates that there is still a lot to be done in the fight against inhuman ideas. “Here what is needed above all is prevention, prevention through education.”
