During a question and answer session in the Bundestag with Agriculture Minister Cem Özdemir (Greens) on the subject of agriculture, SPD MP Daniela De Ridder caused outrage with an interjection about the police officer Rouven L., who was recently killed in Mannheim. This is reported by the “Tagesspiegel”.
“But he wasn’t murdered in the pigsty,” De Ridder shouted to the plenary. The comment can also be found in the minutes of Wednesday’s meeting. The sentence referred to the previous statement by CDU MP Christina Stumpp. She had accused Özdemir of opening the Baden-Württemberg state election campaign by bringing up the subject of deportation. “The terrible images of the Islamist terrorist attack in Mannheim are still in our minds,” said Stumpp. “We have to mourn the murder of a police officer, and the Greens now simply want to get back to business as usual.” After this statement, De Ridder interrupted.
Bundestag Vice President Katrin Göring-Eckardt (Greens) then reprimanded her. According to information from the “Tagesspiegel”, the reprimand is not accompanied by a fine.
De Ridder commented on her homepage one day after the heckling and wrote that she regretted the “misunderstanding”. “The death of this young police officer touches my heart deeply,” she wrote, expressing her condolences to the family.
She stressed that such crimes must be prosecuted with the full force of the law, but must not be abused for election campaign purposes. It is important that people with a migrant background are not treated differently than German criminals when committing crimes.
De Ridder went on to say that she did not understand the connection between the discussion on agricultural and migration policy. She therefore asked in an incompletely recorded interjection: “What does that have to do with agricultural policy? The policeman was not murdered in the pigsty.” She understood that the “fragmentary quote out of context had led to great irritation.”
Last week, Green Party MP Tuba Bozkurt caused a scandal in the Berlin state parliament when she interrupted during a debate about the killing of police officer Rouven L. When Berlin’s Interior Senator Iris Spranger (SPD) spoke of the “terrible death of Mannheim,” she shouted: “Mannheim is dead?” After sharp criticism, Bozkurt resigned from her seat on the presidium.