German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party has called for mandatory reporting of antisemitism in state schools.
CDU Bundestag parliamentary party leader, Volker Kauder, told Welt am Sonntag there was a lack of system-wide information on the issue.
“In every federal state, schools should be obliged to consistently report such incidents to the school administration,” Kauder told the paper.
He said it was important they report it so education authorities could form an interschool response to problem, which has been under the spotlight in Germany in recent months.
“In schools, each individual case must be punished consistently,” the CDU politician added. “On this subject in particular, there must be zero tolerance!”
Kauder’s comments came after nation-wide outrage when a young Jewish girl was bullied for months on end by her Muslim classmates in Berlin.
The CDU’s Kauder on Sunday, however, warned against reducing the topic of intolerance to the fight against antisemitism.
“The statements of the father of the Jewish girl in Berlin, whose case triggered the discussion, were very thought-provoking for me,” said Kauder. “He spoke of some boys from Muslim families treating classmates badly, whether they were Jews, Christians or even Muslims, for example when they went to the wrong mosque.”