The anti-Semitism commissioner of the federal government Felix Klein has demanded tougher penalties for anti-Semitic crimes. The clause in the Criminal Code, according to which acts of racist and xenophobic motives are particularly difficult to punish, must be extended so that "anti-Semitic acts are punished harder," said Klein the "Tagesspiegel".
"Because anti-Semitism is a special form of discrimination, not a subcategory of racism." According to Klein, after the NSU murders, a corresponding clause was included in the Criminal Code, on the basis of which acts of racist and xenophobic motives could be punished even harder. Also antisemitic motives would have to be explicitly mentioned, he demanded.
With an extension of the paragraph also a "political sign" against such acts set, he argued. Furthermore, it would need more staff, which also had to be better trained. "The police and prosecutors must finally be able to prosecute these cases, and quickly."
Again and again people of Jewish faith are victims of anti-Semitic attacks. In the middle of August, two people in Berlin attacked a man recognizable as a Jew because of his clothes. At the end of July, a rabbi from the Jewish Community in Berlin was verbally abused and spit at two men in Arabic, in front of his child.