wfn.org | Germany: No Room for Small Religious Communities

["Christian B. Schäffler" <APD_Info_Schweiz@compuserve.com>]

October 1, 1999
Adventist Press Service (APD)
Christian B. Schaeffler, Editor-in-chief
Fax +41-61-261 61 18
APD@stanet.ch
http://www.stanet.ch/APD
CH-4003 Basel, Switzerland

Germany: No Room for Small Religious Communities -
Berlin wants to refuse public premises to ideological 
organisations and psychomarket offerers

Berlin, Germany. (APD) Three months ago the committee on 
legal affairs of the Berlin Senate recommended a resolution to 
parliament, according to which "potentially explosive religious 
or ideological organisations or psychomarket offerers" will no 
longer be able to rent any public premises in the capital. This 
prohibition not only concerns buildings belonging to the 
authorities but also facilities under private law that the Senate 
has a share in "directly or indirectly" - an actual restriction of 
freedom of assembly.

In 1994 the Senate administration for education, youth and 
sports already presented "information on ideological 
movements and so-called psychogroups". In 1997 this was 
followed by a paper "for discussion" for parliament. Both these 
papers were clearly designed to put a stop to religious 
"proliferation" in the state showing the highest number of 
people leaving the church.

Here and elsewhere the constitutional standards were 
complied with ostensibly by certifying the incriminated 
religious and psychogroups "dangerous and potentially 
explosive". However, there is one problem: the expertises 
regarding "so-called sects and psychogroups" ordered by the 
Bundestag Enquete Commission between 1996 and 1998 were 
not able to confirm the assumed "danger". Not least because 
of this the new Federal Government apparently abandoned 
the implementation of the Enquete Commission's 
recommendations in 1998.

Above all active sect commissioners who were involved in the 
Enquete Commission are obviously disappointed about the 
meagre result of their efforts. Therefore, since sect opponents 
are not getting anywhere at present on a federal level they 
are trying to get their ideas through to the states. In 1998 
police director Dreksler had to experience what strange effects 
sect hysteria has in Berlin of all places. In anonymous letters 
he was denounced to be a Scientologist. He was lucky. Even 
considerable efforts could not prove him to have contacts to 
the group observed by the Federal Internal Security.

The intended prohibition to rent large premises to small 
religious communities in Berlin was triggered off by an 
international convention of Jehovah's Witnesses which was 
supposed to take place in the Olympic stadium in 1998. Due 
to this intention senator Ingrid Stahmer was approached in 
parliament on May 28, 1998. She did not make any statement 
on her personal views but pointed out that conventions such 
as this one had "taken place in Berlin quite frequently" and 
that there were "approval conditions in a constitutional state" 
that had to be kept to. The resolution now recommended by 
the committee on legal affairs can be understood as a 
consequence of this reply: if the legal prerequisites to refuse a 
religious community premises are insufficient, they will just 
have to be created.

Possibly all the groups will have to be labeled "potentially 
explosive" as in a situation of competition an open society 
does not work without conflicts. Should the resolution really 
be passed, the Senate would thus have created an "all-
purpose weapon" and nearly every religious community - 
apart from the two major churches - would have to ask itself: 
"Lord, is it me?" Islamic communities have made a bad 
impression in the debate on school lessons. The Senate lost a 
case against the Israelite community of Adass Jisroel at the 
Federal Administrative Court. In Karlsruhe Jehovah's 
Witnesses filed a constitutional complaint against the ruling of 
the Federal Administrative Court not to grant them the status 
of body of public law, unlike about 30 other religious 
communities.

Legal measures like the resolution recommended in Berlin 
support exclusion. Jehovah's Witnesses, for example, have 
held their conventions in public facilities of Berlin since the 
1920ies. The only time this was prohibited was during the NS 
dictatorship. (Author: Gerhard Besier. The author of this 
article works as church historian in Heidelberg).