Riots in Chemnitz: How the term Hunthunt is contested

One and a half weeks after the riots in Chemnitz there is further dispute in the processing of the events. Noteworthy: The discussion is less about what happened, but rather about how to label the incidents.

Fact is: after the killing offense at the 35-year-old Daniel H. there were demonstrations. In the early afternoon of August 26th, a Sunday, the AFD called for a rally. The call was followed by about a hundred people. This event remained trouble-free, according to the police. A little later, however, 800 demonstrators marched through the city, some knocked policemen to the ground, others threatened people. Videos on social media show attacks on migrants. The city prematurely ended its city festival due to security concerns.

On the evening of the following Monday, 27 August, then gathered even 6000 rights and sympathizers only a few meters from the scene. Without agreement with the police the group marched off, some participants chanted "We are the people". Fireworks were detonated, bottles flew, reporters were abused. Several right-wing extremists showed the Hitler salute, the police initiated ten preliminary investigations.

Escalation of racist violence in #Chemnitz, including hunting scenes on migrants. In Chemnitz 800 - 1000 radical rights & hooligans roamed the streets. Background is the death of a man at the city festival. Fans of the Chemnitzer FC called for the protests # C2608 https://t.co/nUzMmrahZI

At the center of the discussion is now the term hunt - and the question of whether this name in the case of Chemnitz is correct.

Who speaks of a hunt?

Chancellor Angela Merkel and government spokesman Steffen Seibert spoke about it after the first riots in Chemnitz. "We do not take such meetings, hunts on people of different looks, different origins, or the attempt to spread hatred on the streets," Seibert said. Merkel agreed shortly thereafter, "We have video footage about the fact that there were hunts, that there were riots, that there was hatred on the street, and that has nothing to do with our constitutional state."

The term was also used by several media, including in publications of SPIEGEL.

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Who represents a different opinion?

Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer said in his policy statement: "There was no mob, there was no hunt, there were no pogroms in Chemnitz - these are words that do not properly describe what happened there." However, after the speech in the Saxon state parliament, Kretschmer repeatedly said that he did not see any differences in Merkel's position regarding the content of the events: "We do not have to argue about concepts." The point is that we stand up for our democracy, that we support the To take responsibility, to commit delinquency and that is a big job. "

Earlier, senior prosecutor Wolfgang Klein, press spokesman for the Attorney General's Office Dresden, had objected to the concept of the Federal Government. In the material available to the public prosecutor, the Attorney General at least in the previous evaluation "no hunt" around the demonstrations in Chemnitz have noted. What his authority has evaluated so far, contained no evidence of such hunts. "We're not done with the analysis yet, but it may be theorized that more footage and footage will be included," Klein added.

He also referred to the specific task, the Dresden Attorney General currently investigates in Chemnitz - and that is limited. "Our investigations are limited to the immediate demonstration on Sunday and Monday after the previous act in Chemnitz," said the spokesman. All other events that might have occurred elsewhere in the city are to be handled by the public prosecutor Chemnitz and the local police.

The AfD demanded an apology from Merkel. Jörg Meuthen, one of the party's leaders, wrote on Twitter: "There were no hunts." The party calls for the resignation of government spokesman Seibert.

The President of the German Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, also expressed his doubts that during the demonstrations in Chemnitz, hunts for foreign-looking people had taken place. The constitutional protection would be "no reliable information that such hunts have taken place," said Maaßen the "Bild" newspaper.

About the video, which is to show how dark-skinned people are hunted near the Johannisplatz in Chemnitz, he said: "There is no evidence that the circulating on the Internet video for this alleged incident is authentic." According to his cautious assessment, "there are good reasons why it is targeted misinformation in order to possibly distract the public from the murder in Chemnitz".

However, proof of his doubts has not yet been provided. He also gave no details as to who might have spread such "misinformation".

Prime Minister Kretschmer in video: "There was no hunt"

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DPA

What does the term "hunt" mean?

In the past, courts and law enforcement agencies have repeatedly dealt with cases in which a group of attackers were chasing people across the streets. (See below for more details.) However, there is no offense of "hunt-hunting". As a result, the legal clarification of terms is not easy. The term hunt hunting is not legally defined, said prosecutor Klein the SPIEGEL. "I understand in a chase about several people who hunt a man through the city to beat him or to physically massively tackle."

The Duden describes the term in addition to the actual meaning in hunting as "the pursuit, hunting of a man".

In what context has the term been used so far?

In the past, the term has repeatedly described constellations in which a group of attackers persecuted other people. One of these cases occurred in 1999 in Guben in Brandenburg: Eleven extreme right-wing youths persecuted three migrants at night. One of the hunted panicked in his attempt to escape, cutting open his leg artery and bleeding within minutes.

The case also employed the Federal Court of Justice (BGH). However, the process was not about the definition of the term "hunt", but rather about whether or not the main defendants were guilty of attempted bodily harm. The BGH affirmed this.

In 2007, in Mügeln, Saxony, fifty men and women watched eight Indian visitors to a city festival until a nearby pizzeria, where the Indians were entrenched. Saxony's then Prime Minister Georg Milbradt refused to describe the events as a hunt.

The term Hunthunt has been used in the past in a broader sense. It was repeatedly criticized by the media. "I hate hunts," said Carla Bruni in an interview with Die Welt in 2014. "Especially media hunts." If one compares the use of the term in this context with events such as those in Guben and Mügeln, one thing stands out: the physical component - a possible oppression by paparazzi - is clearly pushed into the background.

Finally, the term was also used in purely abstract contexts, in which it lacks any physical reference: described the SPIEGEL in 2000, the future plans of major sporting goods companies as a "chase on the trends of tomorrow". And the political scientist Gary Merrett criticized in 2008 in the "world" the "anti-capitalist rhetoric" in textbooks and spoke of a "systematic hunt against the free market economy in German schools."