Leftists and anti-fascist groups in Germany are protesting continuing attempts to persecute activists in the country. The German Communist Party (DKP), Socialist German Workers Youth (SDAJ), German Education Union (GEW) and youth-students groups affiliated to Die Linke (The Left) and others expressed solidarity with a 27-year-old school teacher from Frankfurt, Luca, who is being persecuted by the state and faces a career ban for participating in a demonstration two years ago. Luca is part of the SDAJ leadership and a trade unionist in the GEW.
The persecution of the activist has courted widespread protests from progressive sections and trade unionists and various groups have initiated a petition demanding its end and the lifting of the career ban imposed on him. Leftists from the Communist Youth of Austria (KJO) and Communist Students Association (KSV) have also expressed solidarity with Luca.
According to reports, a Frankfurt District Court recently ordered Luca to pay a high fine for resisting law enforcement officers, causing serious bodily injury, and breaching peace at the May Day demonstrations in Frankfurt two years ago. Leftist groups claim that all the charges against Luca are false and without evidence. The authorities have also used the indictment to ban Luca from continuing his profession as a teacher, citing the criminal record. Meanwhile, the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor’s Office has been pressing for harsher punishment for Luca and an appeal will be heard at the district court in Frankfurt on September 27. Youth groups, leftists, and trade unionists have called for demonstrations in solidarity with Luca in Frankfurt on the same day.
The petition demanding Luca’s acquittal and the lifting of his career ban states that “professional bans have a long tradition in Germany, 50 years ago politically active teachers were dismissed en masse just because they stood up for a better world and an alternative to the status quo. Even then, this could only be resisted together. It is clear to us: Luca is not a danger, he must be allowed to start his career.”
Progressive sections in Germany had earlier also protested the prosecution of Antifa activist Lina E (28) and three other co-defendants, Lennart A, Jonathan Philipp M, and Jannis R, in the court proceedings widely reported as the ‘Antifa East trial’’ at the Higher Regional Court of Dresden. Several sections have highlighted the speed in punishing leftists and those opposed to fascists and neo-Nazis while probes into crimes by far-right groups proceed slowly. Over the past few years, collusion between far-right criminal networks like the National Socialist Underground (NSU) and state security services in Germany has been exposed in multiple cases, triggering widespread protests.
