Help them FDP a left-wing activist to the office of anti-hate officer?
On Thursday he votes Bundestag the Federal Commissioner for Anti-Discrimination. You can choose: Ferda Ataman (43), publicist and activist – who, before her nomination by the federal cabinet, provoked steep theses.
Ataman once accused citizens who speak of “Heimat” of being close to Nazi ideology (“Blood and Soil”). At the beginning of the corona pandemic, Ataman accused doctors and nurses of treating migrants worse. The question “Where are you from?” is already racist for Ataman. On the other hand, if a German is bothered by the term “potato”, that is for Ataman to be a “thin-skinned Emo-German”.
The left-wing Green Wing, to which Ataman owes the nomination, caused enthusiasm and congratulations at Ataman. And the liberals? Do they vote for ataman to avoid a coalition crash and make the “potato” rant socially acceptable?
When asked by BILD, FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr (45) explained that Ferda Ataman “due to her previous work in the anti-discrimination agency in the field of public relations has demonstrably brought the necessary experience to the position and that’s what matters”.
Although Dürr “does not agree on all points” with Ataman and considers the potato statement to be “unacceptable”, a liberal democracy has to endure “differing opinions”. In addition, Ataman described the potato statement as a mistake in conversation with the FDP parliamentary group.
Has the FDP resistance to the Greens’ desired personnel been eliminated?
Except for Linda Teuteberg (41), the Ferda Ataman in the NZZ accused of “defaming dissidents” and announced that she would not be elected, criticism of the personnel has so far mainly been practiced behind closed doors. Reason: You don’t want to betray Green Minister Lisa Paus (53)’s right to propose…
Announced not to want to vote Ataman: FDP politician Linda Teuteberg
BILD asked all FDP members of the Bundestag whether they want to vote for Ataman and think it is right to call citizens without a migration background “potatoes”. The answers: extremely reserved.
Three parliamentarians declared that they were not yet finished with the “decision-making”. MP Karlheinz Busen (71) said that Ms. Ataman’s “all statements to our citizens” do not give him the opportunity to vote for her according to his “inner beliefs and values”.
The rest: keep quiet…
Meanwhile, criticism of Ataman is getting louder ahead of Thursday’s vote. From the Union comes the demand on the FDP to prevent the election of the activist.
“As a bourgeois party, the FDP must now prove that it is serious about its justified and socially widespread criticism of Ms. Ataman and votes ‘No’ in the vote,” demands Union interior expert Christoph de Vries (47) in BILD. This is “a question of credibility”.
Women’s rights activist Naïla Chikhi (42) from the initiative “Migrant Women for Secularity and Self-Determination” wishes the traffic light coalition “courage not to vote for Mrs. Ataman on Thursday – especially from the FDP”.
Germany needs “an anti-discrimination officer who takes all forms of discrimination into account,” Chikhi told BILD. “People are not only discriminated against because of their religious affiliation, but also when they leave a religious community. Girls, women, but also homosexuals are discriminated against, especially in Muslim orthodox communities.”
For human rights activist Mina Ahadi (66), Ataman is the “wrong person for this position”. According to Ahadi, Ferda Ataman dismisses criticism of political Islam and Islamism as racism. She has “always positioned herself against us critics of Islam, against those who fight for a free society, women’s rights and children’s rights”. Of course, racism is a problem in Germany, says Ahadi. However, it is also important to be able to criticize anti-democratic or anti-integrative tendencies among migrants.
Im „ Spiegel“ criticizes Fatma Özdağlar (26), student officer for diversity promotion at the Berlin Charité, the personal Ataman. She calls on the Bundestag to “find a person who fights unequal treatment without dividing people into groups and thus promoting discriminatory structures and practices”.