The German government on Friday slammed online hate commentaries cheering the unsolved murder of a local politician, who was vocally pro-migrant.
“If someone is so hated, just because he had liberal views, that is the decline of human morality,” Germany’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, told the newspaper Tagesspiegel.
Police are investigating the murder last weekend of the prominent local politician, Walter Luebcke, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party.
The 65-year-old was shot in the head at close range on the terrace of his home in Kassel, around 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Frankfurt, just after Saturday midnight.
Investigators say it is unclear why Luebcke was killed, but a possible political motive has not been ruled out, given the politician had previously received numerous death threats.
Tributes to Luebcke and articles reporting his death sparked an avalanche of comments on social networks, many welcoming the murder – something that President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has slammed.
This murder shocked the whole of Germany.
Walter Lübcke, a popular politician in the state of Hesse, was shot dead outside his own home last weekend.
DW’s @Tessa_C_Walther travelled to Lübcke's hometown of Istha to find out more. pic.twitter.com/dpbz6sSMDO
— DW Politics (@dw_politics) June 7, 2019
“It is simply repugnant to see how some people in the social networks are making fun of this man’s death – welcoming it and applauding it,” Steinmeier said at an event in Dortmund.
“Slander and attacks, hate campaigns and physical violence against officials and mayors cannot be justified.”
Luebcke, the head of regional government in Kassel, had spoken out in defense of migrants at the height of Europe’s refugee crisis in 2015, drawing the fury of the far-right.
On a visit to a refugee shelter in October 2015, he said helping people in need is a basic Christian value.
“Whoever does not represent these values can leave this country at any time if he does not agree. That is the freedom of every German,” he said back then.
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