The state of Hesse activated a new reporting office for antisemitic incidents. This should help to specifically record and document incidents below the criminal liability limit and thus also to combat them.
The Hessian state government has set up an online platform on which antisemitic attacks, threats and insults can be reported. The website runs under the name Research and Information Center for Antisemitism Hessen (RIAS Hessen) and is intended to lead to increased commitment against discrimination, hatred and group-related enmity.
Anti-Semitic incidents can be reported to the experts at www.rias-hessen.de and the email address info@rias-hessen.de . Not only criminally relevant cases are explicitly recorded, but also perceptions below this threshold in order to obtain the broadest possible picture of antisemitism in Hesse. All those affected receive feedback from RIAS Hessen and are referred to victim counseling facilities and institutions as required.
The platform should make it possible not only to record antisemitic incidents that are explicitly relevant under criminal law, but also those that are below this threshold. This is intended to create a picture of antisemitism in Hesse that is as broad as possible, the state announced. All those affected should then receive feedback from RIAS Hessen and, if necessary, receive victim counseling. “From now on, antisemitism can be specifically recorded, analyzed, documented and thus combated even below the criminal liability limit,” says Hessian Interior Minister Peter Beuth (CDU).
RIAS Hessen will be connected to the Democracy Center Hessen at the Philipps University of Marburg. “By locating at the University of Marburg and the Democracy Center there, we are also enabling the connection to the scientific examination of Jew hatred in its current forms and can thus develop even better instruments for combating antisemitism,” says Uwe Becker, the Hessian antisemitism commissioner. In addition, the scientific knowledge that RIAS offers the Democracy Center should be used for educational concepts. “Research and practice go hand in hand, which illustrates the special quality of the registration office in a national comparison,” says the head of the Democracy Center Hesse, Reiner Becker.
RIAS Hessen should also be accompanied by a regular and data protection-compliant exchange with the Jewish communities, the security and judicial authorities and other facilities and institutions. Additional staff have been hired to enable the Democracy Center to cope with the new work created by RIAS. These are antisemitism experts from the social sciences and humanities. The state of Hesse provides the registration office with around 220,000 euros annually.
