"Last generation": Ricarda Lang protects climate activists from RAF comparisons

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Ricarda Lang: The Green leader criticizes comparisons between the RAF and the climate activists of the "last generation"

Photo: Moritz Frankenberg / dpa

The controversial actions of the »last generation« have been debated for weeks.

Green party leader Ricarda Lang is now intervening in the sometimes quite emotional debate and protecting the climate activists from comparisons with a "climate RAF".

The Red Army Faction (RAF) killed with weapons and explosives, more than 30 people lost their lives at the hands of the terrorists, Lang told the newspapers of the Funke media group.

"Anyone who draws parallels here and names the current protests with the RAF in the same breath is playing down the terror of the time and mocking the suffering of the victims and their families," emphasized Lang and warned "that people are being verbally disarmed here."

CSU regional group chief Alexander Dobrindt had demanded in the "Bild am Sonntag" that the emergence of a "climate RAF" must be prevented.

Dobrindt confirmed the choice of words on Tuesday.

For decades, the RAF was considered the epitome of terror and murder in the Federal Republic.

More than 30 people fell victim to left-wing terrorists between the 1970s and the early 1990s.

At the same time, the Union faction is campaigning for tighter penalties against climate activists who block roads or attack works of art in museums.

However, Lang does not believe that stricter laws are necessary.

"Our constitutional state offers sufficient means for this," she said.

Nevertheless, she criticized the forms of protest of the "last generation" as counterproductive.

"If a protest leads to people no longer talking about the cause and only about the form of the protest, that does the cause a disservice," she said.

Criticism of protest actions also from the Greens

Other high-ranking Green politicians have recently criticized the actions of the "last generation".

Federal Economics Minister Robert Habeck and Baden-Württemberg's Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (both Green) expressed displeasure at the actions of climate protectionists at a meeting in Stuttgart.

It is good to create awareness for climate protection.

But it is of no use if people's lives are endangered by protests, said Habeck, according to a report in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".

At the same time, Habeck called for no false comparisons to be made and appealed to the responsibility of commentators.

While the terrorists of the Red Army Faction (RAF) made murder a political tool, the actions of the "last generation" were merely civil disobedience.

According to the report, he called for things to be viewed in a differentiated manner.

According to the newspaper report, Kretschmann sees the actions of the climate protectors as "symbolic actions that do not call into question the legal system as a whole".

You don't have to criminalize them.

You should hold them accountable and keep in touch with the young people in order to dissuade them from their actions "because it harms the cause".

asc/dpa