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"No to lateral thinking", but also "No to the curfew": Demonstration against corona rules
Photo:
Henning Kaiser / dpa
SPIEGEL:
Ms. Lincoln, what did the corona pandemic and the fight against this virus do with fundamental rights in Germany?
Lincoln:
In 2020 we experienced the most massive encroachments on fundamental rights since the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany: the far-reaching contact and exit restrictions, gastronomy and culture were shut down, and church services were banned.
And at times you weren't allowed to demonstrate at all.
SPIEGEL:
Shouldn't the state have protected the life and health of its citizens?
Lincoln:
Yes, of course.
Most of the restrictions were justified for the protection of health.
But not everything was necessary.
Think of the blanket demonstration bans from the initial phase of the pandemic.
Meetings were banned despite conclusive hygiene concepts, including one in which only shoes were to be set up on behalf of people.
How did this help fight the pandemic?
SPIEGEL:
Have you seen any improvements since then?
Lincoln:
Yes, especially in the area of freedom of assembly, things got better in the course of the pandemic.
Because the Federal Constitutional Court has now made it clear that there may be no blanket assembly bans.
Rather, it must be checked in each individual case whether there is an appropriate concept to prevent infections.
SPIEGEL:
What other problems has the pandemic brought with it?
Lincoln:
It's wreaking havoc on already disadvantaged groups. For example, refugees who live in collective accommodation and who were subjected to collective, almost detention-like, forced quarantines. The building was then surrounded by the police for weeks, nobody was allowed out, but the virus was able to spread unchecked inside. Or the employees in the health sector: They were already completely overburdened before the pandemic because the system had been saved. There is an urgent need for legal requirements for more staff and better occupational safety. Another example are school closings, from which children from socially disadvantaged households in particular have suffered.
SPIEGEL:
What are the alternatives to daycare and school closings if the virus is rampant, especially among younger people, as it has recently?
Lincoln:
Studies suggest that infections at schools and daycare centers only make up a small proportion of the overall infection process and that children are more likely to be infected in the family environment. And even if it were different: You have to weigh it up against the immense psychological consequential damage that children and adolescents suffer when they have no social contacts and no sensible lessons for such a long period of time. I therefore consider it disproportionate for schools to be closed while the sorting centers at Amazon, the meat factories and the open-plan offices remain largely unregulated. In addition, the failure to implement simple and significantly less drastic measures, such as installing air filters in classrooms.
SPIEGEL:
Where do you see the greatest need for action in the fight for fundamental and human rights?
Lincoln:
Germany must now learn the lessons from the corona pandemic.
We have to avoid the temporary shift in power to the executive branch and the rather lax handling of encroachments on fundamental rights in other areas after the pandemic.
Above all, I mean the area of internal security, such as the expansion of police powers.
However, I see the greatest need for action, completely independent of the corona pandemic, in the inhuman asylum policy of the federal government, institutional racism and the rampant state surveillance.
SPIEGEL:
These are harsh allegations that you must explain and, above all, substantiate.
Lincoln:
In asylum policy, I speak of deportations in crisis regions, the rampant deportation detention and of course the catastrophic situation in the Mediterranean and the German involvement in illegal pushbacks by the EU border protection agency Frontex. In addition, there are discriminatory measures such as social benefits well below the Hartz IV level, which the GFF takes constitutional action against. Institutional racism is also illustrated by a very recent example from Bremen, where the urban construction company Brebau excludes people with a migrant background from the allocation of apartments. The powers of the police and secret services to monitor secretly have been expanded for years. Numerous constitutional complaints from the GFF are pending against this, too.Now the secret services are also to be equipped with state Trojans.
SPIEGEL:
How has the basic rights situation generally developed in this country in recent years?
Lincoln:
I can't say that across the board.
We see a steady downward trend in asylum policy.
There are always deteriorations and new laws that intervene even further in the rights of asylum seekers: currently, for example, the massive expansion of the central register for foreigners, which completely disregards data protection and encourages abuse.
But there are also areas in which improvements are becoming clear: The latest decision by the Federal Constitutional Court on climate protection was groundbreaking.
Hopefully this will actually translate into more effective policy.
SPIEGEL:
Is there enough attention paid to fundamental rights in politics and the general public?
Lincoln:
Germany has a very strong and critical civil society.
Many initiatives and organizations take on a watchdog function and denounce grievances.
At the same time, there is a worrying development: many organizations are being deprived of their non-profit status.
It started with the Attac ruling, but it also affected other organizations.
So there are no secure framework conditions for basic and human rights work.
SPIEGEL:
Which organizations do you mean?
Lincoln:
For example the petition platforms change.org and Campact, the Democratic Center Ludwigsburg or the VVN-BdA. This also indirectly affects many other organizations that hardly dare to take a stand because they are concerned about their own charitable status. Something has to change about that. We need a reform of non-profit law so that organizations can speak plain language without fear of consequences when it comes to human rights.
