Progressive groups across Germany have intensified their campaign to demand justice for Mouhamed Lamine Dramé, a 16-year-old teenage boy of Senegalese origin who was shot to death by the police in Dortmund in August. On November 19, thousands of people marched in Dortmund demanding justice for Dramé and the speeding up of the inquiry on the issue. Various anti-fascist and ant-racist groups and left-wing parties, including Die Linke, joined the protest. The protesters criticized the excessive actions of the Dortmund police officers.
Mouhamed Lamine Dramé, who suffered from mental health issues and lived in a Catholic youth welfare institution, was shot dead by the police in Dortmund’s Nordstadt on August 8. The police tried to justify the shooting by saying it was an act of self-defense as Dramé was wielding a knife. However, activist groups said there is enough evidence that the police was responsible for the escalation of the situation.
In the aftermath of the incident, the issue was raised in the Landtag (legislative body) of North Rhine-Westphalia State where members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) condemned the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-Greens-led State government’s insensitivity towards the rise in police violence in the state.
A report by JungeWelt noted that this was not an isolated incident. It said that police violence had led to the death of four people in one week in August, three in September and two in October. Many were from migrant backgrounds.
The Dortmund Committee of the Die Linke said that the latest investigation around the shooting threw further doubts on the police operation and demanded that the State’s Interior Minister take responsibility for the incident, and the officials involved be held to account.
On November 24, Marius Dornemann, from the Socialist German Workers Youth (SDAJ) told Peoples Dispatch that “More than 2500 people followed the call of the alliance ‘Justice 4 Mouhamed’ to Dortmund on November 19 and protested in memory of all victims of police violence.” He added that the death of boy was due to the “repressive, racist and discriminatory deployment logic of the police with a high potential for violence.”
