BERLIN. Federal Anti-Discrimination Commissioner Ferda Ataman has complained about an alleged increase in xenophobia in Germany. “We not only see a ‘foreigners-out’ mood and an increasing contempt for humanity when we celebrate on Sylt or at popular festivals,” she said at the Presentation of their 2023 annual report. Moreover, racism is becoming increasingly open, direct and harsh.
According to the unrepresentative report Last year, the Anti-Discrimination Office registered a record number of 10,722 requests for advice. Most of these were based on alleged racist discrimination (41 percent; around 3,400 cases), followed by the discrimination criterion ‘disability and chronic diseases’ (25 percent; around 2,000 inquiries) and alleged experiences of discrimination on the grounds of sex or gender identity (24 percent; almost 2,000 requests).
The report cites a concrete example of racism
Most requests for advice in 2023 (33 percent; approximately 2,600 cases) related to working life, the report continues. The life domain ‘private services and access to goods’ formed the second largest part of the advice volume with more than 1,500 questions. 1,100, or 14 percent, of the questions were received because of alleged discrimination by agencies and authorities.
As a concrete example of racist discrimination, the report cites the alleged case of a black man who was the only one asked to show his ID by a store clerk in a department store. The person allegedly affected then contacted the anti-discrimination office.
She, in turn, has now approached the department store with the accusation of ‘racial profiling’. ‘Racing profiling’, i.e. checking people based on their ethnic appearance, is prohibited under the General Equal Treatment Act. After the intervention of the anti-discrimination agency, the entrepreneur promised to provide the entire staff with training on racism and offered the person allegedly affected a shopping voucher as compensation.
Ataman called Germans ‘potatoes’
Ataman called on the federal government to reform the General Equal Treatment Act. Almost a year ago, the anti-discrimination agency launched a corresponding foundational paper was presentedwhich includes expanding the criteria for discrimination and making it easier to prove discrimination.