2024-07-10 23:52:19
In the so-called subsidy affair, Education Minister Stark-Watzinger has separated from a state secretary. The latter now wants to speak out herself and is taking the matter to court.
State Secretary Sabine Döring, who was temporarily retired by Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger (FDP), is taking legal action against the ministry. She wants to use a so-called urgent application to the Berlin Administrative Court to ensure that she is allowed to speak publicly about the so-called subsidy affair. The urgent application was received on Thursday evening, said a spokeswoman for the court. The “Tagesschau” had previously reported on it.
Döring wants to get permission to testify through the courts and is objecting to the public statement that she commissioned the investigation in question, said the spokeswoman. A decision is not expected any time soon. The Federal Ministry of Education, her former employer, does not authorize Döring to make a public statement, according to the “Tagesschau” report. The ministry did not initially comment when asked.
The background to this is the ministry’s handling of an open letter from university professors on the Middle East conflict. In May, the lecturers had criticized the clearing of a camp of pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the Free University of Berlin. This in turn triggered criticism from Stark-Watzinger. In her opinion, the letter “ignores the terror of Hamas.”
Later, emails were made public which showed that someone at a high level in the ministry had asked for an investigation into the extent to which statements in the protest letter from the Berlin university professors were relevant under criminal law and whether the ministry could cut funding as a consequence. The action sparked protests. Stark-Watzinger then parted ways with State Secretary Döring and explained that the State Secretary responsible for the university department had commissioned the underlying investigation.
The ministry later said that Döring had commissioned a legal review of the protest letter over the phone. The ministry’s technical level understood this order to mean that both a legal review and a review of possible funding-related consequences should be carried out. Döring explained that she had not intended to carry out a review of possible funding-related consequences.