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Police officers in Düsseldorf (2020)
Photo:
Rupert Oberhäuser / imago images
In the wake of the scandal surrounding right-wing extremist chats by police officers in North Rhine-Westphalia, six candidates for commissioners have already been released.
There would be a number of other proceedings against police officers - with the aim of removing them from service, said the special commissioner in the fight against right-wing extremism at the police, Uwe Reichel-Offermann.
He presented the situation picture in the state parliament, which covers the period from 2017 to 2020.
Accordingly, men as well as the security and exchange service are disproportionately affected by the suspected cases.
110 of 186 evaluated cases concentrate on the police headquarters in Essen (50), Cologne (21), Aachen (25) and Dortmund (14).
Most of the cases are to be rated as racism (125), glorification of Nazism (95), anti-Semitism (66) and glorification of violence (62).
In the labor law proceedings of non-civil servants, three warnings were issued and two dismissals.
251 employees of security authorities are under suspicion
Four employees of NRW security authorities with contacts to right-wing extremist organizations and one as a member of a right-wing extremist group were discovered, it said.
The North Rhine-Westphalian Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) said the number had now increased to 251 employees of security authorities who had come under suspicion.
Last year, the police in Mülheim / Ruhr in North Rhine-Westphalia discovered several WhatsApp groups in which right-wing extremist and racist content was exchanged.
At the time, the investigations were directed against 30 police officers.
In the past, police officers with openly right-wing extremist attitudes were repeatedly noticed.
When the chat groups in Mülheim were exposed, Interior Minister Reul spoke of a “shame for the NRW police”.
Other federal states are also affected: The Frankfurt am Main public prosecutor charged four active and former officials in February.
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lmd / dpa