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Germany: MERA25 parliamentary candidate dismissed for expressing solidarity with Palestine (www.wsws.org)

submitted 1 week ago by IndustryStandard@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.org

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Schweizer was a civil service lawyer and worked as a consultant in the Ministry of Labour. In this year’s federal election, she ran on the Berlin state list for MERA25 and as a direct candidate in Berlin Mitte. The hate campaign that led to Schweizer’s dismissal was triggered by a December 6 post on X in which she accused the Zionist Malca Goldstein-Wolf of waging a “defamation campaign” because she had called the renowned journalist Georg Restle an antisemite for his criticism of Netanyahu’s war.

Goldstein-Wolf apparently researched Schweizer’s occupation and, when she found out that she worked for the Ministry of Labour, made this known on X and initiated a smear campaign against her. Hundreds of Zionist trolls then spread the most vicious slanders against Schweizer and demanded that she be fired.

The media also immediately joined in the smear campaign. On December 11, the tabloid Bild ran with the headline “Heil shocked! Employee spreads vile hatred of Israel” and went so far as to accuse Schweizer of trivialising the Holocaust.

Schweizer was then invited to a staff meeting, then suspended in January and finally dismissed without notice from her job and stripped of her civil servant status in February. At the same time, in the final days of the federal election campaign, her LinkedIn account was blocked without explanation.

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[–] Genosse@feddit.org 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Also to put this into perspective. Federal workers (bo matter where they are employed) are legally required to remain neutral. This goes even thus far, that you can face consequences for going on protests. However, the thing she said is not just her position, but also the position of her Party Mera25. There is also a law providing protection for federal workers who are part of a political party. In theory she shouldn't get fired for expressing the standpoint of her Party.

At the same time our commissar of Antisemitism openly said, in an Interview he attended as said role, not as a private person, that he likes Trumps plans of ethnically cleansing the Gaza strip. In a press conference his actions were defended by stating, that he does not have to reflect the views of the government, even tho his role is part of the government, and the he is not obligated to follow orders if the government.

Yes I know, Germany devinetively has a problem with not being to critical about Israel committing genocide in Gaza.

[–] Successful_Try543@feddit.org 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Federal workers legally required to remain neutral

Government employees have to act neutrally when fulfilling their job duties. But as a private person, in their free time, they are free to protest. They only must not work against the 'liberal democratic basic order' (FDGO) when they are regular employees or they must act in favour of the FDGO when they are civil servants (Beamte), respectively, as the latter have sworn by oath to do so.
While the existence (and security) of the state Israel has been declared national interest (Staatsräson) by our chancellors Merkel and Scholz, by itself it does not touch the FDGO. The only aspect I can think of in that regard, that would be against the FDGO, is the endorsement of terrorism.

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Thanks for this clarification which a lot of people appear to leave out.