Discrimination Officer: Ferda Ataman's election postponed to early July

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The publicist Ferda Ataman, designated head of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency

Photo: IMAGO/M.

Popow / IMAGO/Metodi Popow

The publicist Ferda Ataman is to be elected the new head of the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency in the coming session of the Bundestag at the beginning of July.

This was announced by the parliamentary director of the Greens, Irene Mihalic.

Her election was supposed to take place this week, but the vote was obviously postponed – according to reports from the Süddeutsche Zeitung and Bild under pressure from the FDP parliamentary group.

Ataman was proposed for the post by the federal cabinet last week.

Immediately after it was announced, the proposal triggered some fierce criticism, including among liberals.

Among other things, it is about controversial statements by Ataman from the past.

For example, in a SPIEGEL column, Ataman referred to Germans without a migration background as “potatoes” (until 2020 she wrote the column “Heimatkunde” for SPIEGEL; you can find an overview of her texts here).

In addition, in the course of her nomination by the federal cabinet, she deleted a number of tweets that could have gotten her into trouble - Ataman confirmed to the dpa news agency that she had "deleted tweets from her account for reasons of neutrality".

Criticism of the nomination process

According to "SZ", there was also criticism in FDP circles of the approach taken by family minister Lisa Paus (Greens), which Ataman had suggested: When it comes to filling federal commissioners, it is common for a candidate to introduce herself to the parliamentary groups before the election and only then be nominated.

This has now happened: Ferda Ataman introduced himself to the Greens and FDP parliamentary groups on Tuesday.

Karen Taylor, member of the Council of Representatives of the Federal Conference of Migrant Organizations, criticized the handling of Ataman on Wednesday.

"Obviously there is a problem with honest and constructive criticism in Germany, otherwise all the allegations and attacks against you cannot be understood," Taylor told the dpa.

Anyone who wants to overcome discriminatory structures in this country has to be loud and persistent, because "nice words alone have never changed anything for the better."

Therefore, Ataman is exactly the right person for the post of anti-discrimination officer.

mgo/AFP/dpa