Tolerance ambassador calls for deportation
July 19, 2017
The Social Democrats' tolerance ambassador apologized on Tuesday for comments percieved by many as racist.
Nina Queer, a prominent Berlin drag queen, called for the deportation of a group of teens who assaulted a gay couple in Neukölln on Monday. "It makes me sick," Nina Queer wrote on Facebook on Monday evening, linking to an article on the assault. "Deport them immediately! Whether they are born in Germany or not! If you want to have stress, you can definitely find a great war zone."
Five teenagers, who witnesses said spoke Turkish, abused two men and then attacked one of them before passers-by intervened.
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Nina Queer was recently appointed "Tolerance Ambassador" by Berlin's Social Democratic Party (SPD), the state branch of one of the country's ruling parties, and last year helped out on the successful election campaign of Berlin mayor Michael Müller.
Her face appeared on campaign posters with the message "Berlin remains free."
SPD politician Markus Pauzenberger slammed Nina Queer on Monday, saying "statements such as these are completely unacceptable. We are emphatically distancing ourselves from these despiscable comments," he said in a statement to Berlin's local Nollendorf Blog.
Nina Queer apologized in an interview with German gay lifestyle magazine Blu. "I want to apologize to all those who have misunderstood me and who I have hurt. Everyone who knows me knows that I am quite clearly left-wing. Race, religion and origin are completely irrelevant to me! Maybe I went too far with my posting. One must not forget, however, that I always transcend and provoke as a cross-dresser. I would like to apologize. "
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In 2011 the drag queen was reportedly hit with allegations of racism in an article about Africans, but was still backed by the SPD at that time, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper reported.
Nina Queen hit back at the latest criticism.
"Instead of dealing with the problem of increasing homophobic violent acts, I am now abused as a Nazi," she was quoted as saying by a Berlin newspaper.