In early August, the Springer (BILD etc.) press and various AfD-affiliated blogs, etc., once again ran big chauvinistic headlines about a "criminal migrant" being protected by the German state. This was in fact about a crime against the people - a 23-year-old Afghan from Regensburg who came to Germany in 2015 had sexually harassed and raped several young women and girls (the youngest was 16) between 2019 and 2022.
The court has now absurdly let him go without punishment, only the next 22 months he is free on probation with the conditions not to have more than 0.5 per mille intus, to pay 2500 euros to the victim of the rape and to have to complete an anti-aggression training. The woman is said to have rejected the payment as well as his "apology".
Since Mohammad M. was 19 years old at the time of the first offense and although further acts followed much later, the case was dealt with by the juvenile court, where "the legislator places the idea of education above punishment". The justification of the verdict is correspondingly pedagogical: The judge was "graciously disposed" by the six months of pre-trial detention that M. had had to serve as a result of his arrest after returning from a vacation with his family, and by his "comprehensive confession". So in the end it could also become an important pedagogical argument that the man was "a successful example of integration" (1.0 secondary school leaving certificate, plant mechanic), a "prime example of how one can arrive well in Germany". That probably means that whoever assimilates better is also allowed to misbehave more here. At least that being a rapist means for the state to be well integrated, to be a good German, one can well imagine. Another reason for the verdict is that apparently not only the rapist is to blame, but also the alcohol - because under alcohol M. is a different person. The judge has probably not heard of the fact that under alcohol "the mask falls". In this respect, the 0.5 per mille requirement; the man should not show what kind of person he really is. Whether it is so pedagogical to tackle the problem as far away from the root as possible remains questionable.
In the context of the political situation, the court proceedings have played a part in further advancing the reactionarization of the German state. The condition for the chauvinistic smear campaign against migrants in the media is instigated by the German state, specifically a juvenile court, itself. In addition to broken airplanes, obvious opinion-making on public broadcasting, identity politics and linguistic acrobatics at every turn, embarrassing appearances by Baerbock, Lang and Habeck, the scandalous verdict has once again provided an example for which to call for a stronger state that enforces harder and represents "traditional values" (i.e., more reaction) more. This propaganda of the bourgeois press finds approval among many angry people.
It is obvious that patriarchal violence is comparatively frequent among migrants, which is due to their situation as refugees in an imperialist country with all the consequences of that and the strong influence of patriarchy in their semi-feudal "countries of origin" and is not, as reactionaries claim, a question of "clash of cultures" (see Class Position 13 - "Refugees and the Patriarchy - What is to be done?"). And that is one more reason to fight against patriarchy, and one more reason to fight against imperialism. But for the bourgeois hate press it is not so important that the state protects rapists, it is much more interesting that the state protects "criminal foreigners". Thus it happens that reactionaries like Julian Reichelt ("Achtung, Reichelt!"), on whom even accusations of sexual assault and exortion rest, exploit patriarchal violence for their chauvinist agitation. Police violence against migrant youth, proposals for "point scoring systems," an open fragmentation of the right to asylum - all this the FRG can only advance if not insignificant parts of the people legitimize these measures.
