BLOQUE 2º: La publicidad en las Redes Sociales

6.2.1 Background and general context

Anti-discrimination laws and policies in Ger many are based on Articles 1 and 3 of the Basic Law (Grundge-setz, GG). Article 1 of the Basic Law obliges the state to respect and protect human dignity, which is invio-lable. Article 3 para 1 of the Basic Law spells out the basic right of equality before the law, which binds the legislative, executive and judici ary powers. “Pursuant to the judgments of the Fed eral Constitutional Court, the basic right of equal ity means that materially equal facts and situations should be treated equally and un-equal facts and sit uations, unun-equally” (BPB 2017). Arti-cle 3 para 2 and 3 of the Basic Law define which facts are no reasons for favouring or disfavouring a person (non-dis crimination principles). Men and women shall have equal rights (Article 3 para 2 of the Basic Law), and no person shall be favoured or disfavoured be-cause of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and ori gin, faith, or religious or political opinions or be dis-favoured because of disability (Article 3 para 3 of the Basic Law). “While it is admissible to treat German na-tionals and foreigners differently, the different treat-ment must still meet the conditions of the right of equality” (BPB 2019).

Article 3 para 2 of the Basic Law additionally states that the “state shall promote the actual implemen-tation of equal rights for women and men and take steps to eliminate disadvantages that now exist”.

On 18 August 2006, the General Act on Equal Treat-ment (AGG) entered into force. It provides a com-prehensive legal framework to protect citizens against discrimination not only by the state (as set out in the Basic Law), but also by private agents (such as employ-ers, landlords or owners of clubs or restaurants). This Act transposed four European Di rectives into German law:

„ the Anti-Racism Directive (Directive 2000/43/EC)⁷⁸,

„ the Employment Equality Framework Directive (Di-rective 2000/78/EC)⁷⁹,

„ the Gender Directive Civil Law (Directive 2004/113/EC)⁸⁰,

„ the Gender Equality in Employment and Occu-pation Directive (Directive 2006/54/EC)⁸¹. The purpose of the Act is to prevent or to stop dis-crimination⁸² on the grounds of race or ethnic ori-gin, gender, religion or belief, disability, age or sex-ual orientation (Section 1 of the General Act on Eqsex-ual Treatment).

With the entry into force of the General Act on Equal Treatment, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency (ADS) was established with the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth (Sec-tion 25 of the General Act on Equal Treatment). It pro-vides independent support to people who believe that they have been discriminated against for one of the

78 Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin.

79 Council Directive 2000/78/EC of 27 November 2000 estab-lishing a general framework for equal treatment in employ ment and occupation. “With this Directive, the European Union aims to create a general framework to combat discrim ination for reasons of race or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation in the field employment and occupation” (ADS 2015: 4).

80 Council Directive 2004/113/EC of 13 December 2004 imple-menting the principle of equal treatment between men and women in the access to and supply of goods and services.

81 Directive 2006/54/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 July 2006 on the implementation of the princi ple of equal opportunities and equal treatment of men and women in matters of employment and occupation (recast).

82 An evaluation of the General Act on Equal Treatment from 2016 proposed replacing the German term “Benachteiligung” by

“Diskriminierung” (“discrimination”) in order to “comply with the goals of the European anti-discrimination directives and strengthen legal certainty and improve people’s aware ness by using more precise terms” (ADS 2016: 25).

reasons listed in Section 1 of the General Act on Equal Treatment by informing them about their legal entitle-ments and available legal procedures, by handing them over to other advisory centres and by supporting them in trying to achieve a settlement (Section 27 subs. 2 of the General Act on Equal Treatment). In addition, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency engages in public relations efforts, takes measures to prevent discrimi-nation for the reasons set out in Section 1 of the Gen-eral Act on Equal Treatment and conducts scientific research concerning such discrimination (Section 27 subs. 3 of the General Act on Equal Treatment). Every four years, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency and the Federal Government and Bundestag Commis-sioners shall report to the Bundestag on discrimina-tion on the grounds set out in Secdiscrimina-tion 1 of the General Act on Equal Treatment and give recommendations on how to remove and prevent such discrimination (Sec-tion 27 subs. 4 of the General Act on Equal Treatment).

The third such joint report was presented by the end of September 2017 (ADS 2017a). The Federal Anti-Dis-crimination Agency shall adequately include in its ef-forts non-governmental organisations and institutions which work to prevent discrimination on the grounds set out in Section 1 of the General Act on Equal Treat-ment at the European, Federal, Land or regional level (Section 29 of the General Act on Equal Treatment).

Alongside the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency, there are state, state-funded and/or non-govern-mental anti-discrimination institutions in numer ous Länder, which not only provide advice and in formation, but in some cases also equality, diversity, anti-discrim-ination and anti-racism trainings – in creasingly to the administration and the police, too. Since January 2015, numerous advisory initiatives have been supported by the Federal programme “Live Democracy! Active against Right-wing Ex tremism, Violence and Hate”.

The ‘National Action Plan against Racism’ (‘Nation-aler Aktionsplan gegen Rassismus’ (NAP)) is an initia-tive from 2008 to combat racist violence, discrimi-nation and ideologies. On 14 June 2017 the Federal Government passed a new revised NAP, which was amended to include the topics “homo- and transpho-bia” (BMI 2017).

The Federal Government outlines the following objectives:

„ “People who face racist discrimination, violence or other ideologies of inequality require protec-tion and solidarity: they are to be strengthened by government action as well as measures from public

institutions and social organisations and to be in-cluded in the drawing up of solutions,

„ Dismantling racism and racist discrimination and enabling a life free of discrimination in a demo-cratic, diverse and pluralistic society,

„ Intensifying the examination of ideologies of in-equality, the battle and dismantling of racism as well as the related discriminations and stereotypes,

„ Continuing to ensure the promotion of civil society engagement, courage and conflict skills as well as the strengthening of the lived, diverse, democratic society and its values,

„ Carrying out the further development or initiating of the appropriate measures taking into considera-tion of internaconsidera-tional standards and on the basis of human rights,

„ Reaching the continuous increase of public aware-ness and raising awareaware-ness for equality and par-ity on all societal levels” (BMI/BMFSFJ 2017: 6 et seq.).

Since 2012, the Advice Centre on Radicalisation is set up at the Federal Office for Migration and Refu gees, which can be approached by anyone “who ob serves an islamist-motivated radicalisation in their personal en-vironment” (BAMF 2017a). Relatives, friends or for ex-ample also teachers may contact the staff at the hot-line of the Advice Centre, “which re cord the cases and provide individual and demand-oriented counselling together with the non-profit organisations. There are almost 70 persons involved on site nationwide. Among the employees are so cial pedagogues, political scien-tists, scholars of Islam and psychologists, all trained accordingly to con duct the counselling interviews, to develop consult ing strategies and put them into prac-tice with those seeking for counsel. Counselling is pro-vided in the languages German, Turkish, Arabic, Eng-lish, Farsi, Russian and Urdu” (BAMF 2018e; see also an evalu ation of the Advice Centre on Radicalisation, Uhl mann 2017). Since its establishment, the Advice Centre on Radicalisation has led more than 4.100 con-sultations. Currently around 40 to 50 calls come in monthly (BAMF 2018i).

6.2.2 National developments

Attacks on refugees, refugee shelters and refugee support networks

In 2018, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) reg-istered more than 1,775 politically motivated crimes against refugees, their accommodation facilities, sup-port organisations and voluntary helpers (2017: more

than 2,350), ranging from insults to grievous bod-ily harm, arson and attempted murder (Deutscher Bundestag 2019i). With few exceptions, the offences were classified as right-wing politically motivated crimes⁸³. As of 26 February 2019, investigations into 1,108 crimes led to 1,409 suspects being identified, with the breakdown as follows: 1,323 suspects were investigated in connection with 1,042 crimes against asylum seekers, 61 in connection with 45 registered attacks on asylum seekers’ shelters and 25 in connec-tion with 21 crimes against support organisaconnec-tions or volunteers (Deutscher Bundestag 2019i: 16).

However, the recording of politically motivated crimes in the statistics on right-wing politically motivated crimes has long been criticised for statistically under-estimating politically motivated violence. The reason for this is that the crimes are classified at the time they are recorded. If a politically motivated background is only established in subsequent investigations, the classification of the offence is not changed. In addi-tion, it is criticised that the statistics focus too much on offences that are extremist, i.e. anti-constitutional, meaning that the term 'racism' is very narrowly de-fined. Raising police officers' awareness of the issue is also relevant in this context. In many cases, evidence of racist motivation is not interpreted or recorded as such. Only since 2017 do investigations have to take into account the views of those concerned, which can often provide valuable information with regard to rac-ist motivation (Lang 2018). In addition, racrac-ist crimes are not always reported by the victims, “among other things because they have little confidence in the po-lice. The number of offences registered by victim counselling centres which keep their own statistics is significantly higher than those registered by the au-thorities” (Lang 2018: 8).

Establishment of a nationwide reporting office against anti-Semitism

A nationwide reporting office against anti-Semitism was established in 2018. Patron is the Federal Gov-ernment Commissioner for Anti-Semitism, Felix Klein (Jüdische Allgemeine 2018; Niewendick 2018). The

83 Crimes are classified as right-wing politically motivated if the circumstances of the crime and/or the perpetrator’s stance suggest that they can be reasonably assumed to have been per-petrated on the grounds of a “right-wing” political orientation.

The act as such need not necessarily be aimed at suspending or eliminating an element of the free, democratic organisation of the state (extremism). In particular, this applies to offences per-petrated in full or in part for nationalist, racist, social-darwinist or national-socialist reasons. These politically motivated crimes are to be classified as right-wing extremist crimes” (Landtag Baden-Württemberg 2016: 2).

Central Reporting Office, headed by the Federal As-sociation of Anti-Semitism Research and Information Centres (Bundesverband Recherche- und Information-sstellen Antisemitismus (RIAS)) that is based in Ber-lin, commenced its work in November 2018. Its main task is to collect and evaluate the quality of reports on anti-Semitic incidents from decentralised report-ing offices. Persons affected by anti-Semitism in Ger-many include both German Jews and third-country nationals. However, anti-Semitic patterns of hostility are not a migration-specific problem but are a wide-spread problem in some sections of German society, as studies have repeatedly shown in the past and also in 2018 (Decker et. al. 2018: 78 et seqq.; Möller et. al.

2016: 329 et seqq.).

A number of projects against anti-Semitism are also being implemented at the level of the Länder. In Baden-Württemberg, for instance a council of experts was set up at the state anti-Semitism Commissioner. It consists of “around 20 Jewish and non-Jewish experts from academia, associations and civil society” (State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg 2018). The aim of the council of experts is to address three prevalent topics in particular: anti-Semitic conspiracy myths in the digi-tal media, anti-Semitism among immigrants and radi-calisation in old age. In future, the council of experts will publish a report every four years (Staatsministe-rium Baden-Württemberg 2018). In Schleswig-Hol-stein, a new contract was concluded with the Jewish state associations to improve the situation of Jewish life in the Land. The annual subsidy of EUR 800,000 is to be used for the professionalisation of youth workers and for urgently needed Rabbinical positions in order to keep Jewish life in Schleswig-Holstein fit for the fu-ture (Ministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur Schleswig-Holstein 2018).

Anti-Semitism continues to be a widespread social problem in Germany, which affects all social strata both subtly and directly, especially the extremist mar-gins. In the area of anti-Semitism, it is particularly common for assaults such as insults, abuse and threats either not to be reported or to fall below the threshold of criminal liability and therefore not to appear at all in the official Police Crime Statistics(Polizeiliche Krimi-nalstatistik (PKS) (Niewendick 2018).

Expert Commission on antiziganism

The Federal Government comprising the CDU, CSU and SPD agreed in its coalition agreement to set up a commission of experts on antiziganism (CDU/CSU/SPD 2018: 119). The Federal Ministry of the Interior is responsible for setting up the Expert

Commission. “With a view to the content and struc-tural design of an expert commission, an initial dis-cussion took place at State Secretary level with the Chairperson of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma at the Federal Ministry of the Interior at the end of August 2018” (Deutscher Bundestag 2018p: 2).

According to the Federal Government, an essential task of the Expert Commission is to draw up a report by “independent experts [...] with regard to manifes-tations and stocktaking on the subject of antizigan-ism in Germany as a form of group-related xenopho-bia” (Deutscher Bundestag 2018p: 3). The commission of experts is funded to the tune of EUR 550,000 per year. Persons affected by anti-Semitism in Germany in-clude both German Sinti and Roma and third-country nationals. However, patterns of hostility against Sinti and Roma are not a migration-specific problem, but a widespread problem in some sections of German soci-ety, as studies have repeatedly shown in the past and again in 2018 (Decker et. al. 2018: 103 et seqq.).

'Youth social work in schools'

Since March 2018, the Federal Ministry for Family Af-fairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth has been funding the programme ‘Youth Social Work in Schools’

which aims to protect young people from Islamist rad-icalisation. At 162 locations, socio-educational support is offered to young people at school and during the transition to working life. The programme focuses on cooperation at all levels: with the Länder, the munici-palities and schools. Youth migration services as well as the bodies responsible for the prevention of radi-calisation and civic education for children and young people are also involved (BMFSFJ 2018).

Annual report by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency

In 2018, the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency re-ported 3,455 requests for counselling relating to grounds of discrimination under the General Equality Act. 31% of the requests made involved issues relating to ethnic origin. Ethnic origin was hence the most fre-quent reason for seeking counselling ahead of gender and disability (ADS 2019).