As of: February 21, 2024, 12:49 p.m
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Johannes Beleites stands in front of the state parliament of Saxony-Anhalt.
© Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa
Saxony-Anhalt gets a new representative to deal with the SED dictatorship.
What does Johannes Beleites plan to do?
Magdeburg - Johannes Beleites becomes the new representative of the state of Saxony-Anhalt for coming to terms with the SED dictatorship.
The state parliament decided this with a large majority on Wednesday.
Beleites received 81 of 92 valid votes, and a total of six votes went to two other candidates.
Three MPs voted no and two abstained.
Beleites, who was born in Halle (born 1967), grew up as the son of a Protestant pastor in Trebnitz (Burgenlandkreis) and came into conflict with the SED state as a teenager and young adult.
In Leipzig at the end of the 1980s, Beleites made contact with opposition groups and photographed Leipzig Monday demonstrations.
In 1990 he worked on the Leipzig Citizens' Committee to disband the Stasi and on the special committee of the GDR People's Chamber to control the dissolution of the Stasi.
After the fall of the Wall, he worked, among other things, in the area of political education for the Stasi Records Authority and the Evangelical Academy of Thuringia in Neudietendorf.
There are still those affected and victims of the SED dictatorship who must be given a voice, said Beleites after the election.
He called for a reversal of the burden of proof when compensating for consequential health damage.
These people should not have to prove that they suffered the damage in prison, but rather the pension provider should prove that it was not related to the prison.
“Something like this already exists in the Bundeswehr and why shouldn’t it also exist for those persecuted by the SED?” said Beleites.
The previous representative, Birgit Neumann-Becker, will be leaving office in the next few weeks.
The task includes, among other things, dealing with the injustice committed by the state security and other GDR institutions.
The election is for a period of five years.
Beleites said he would take office at the beginning of April at the latest.
dpa