Unbelievable: Death threat against Hentschke-Bau boss Drews

Jörg Drews makes a personal statement:

"On the morning of December 22, 2020, my company received a threatening phone call. Wording: "The Sachsensau Drews will die." I take this threat seriously. It applies to me personally, my local political commitment and my activities for the city of Bautzen and for the region of East Saxony. The fact that all Saxons are insulted in the threat shows how strong prejudices now have an effect - prejudices that are fueled in particular by the media. The image of the right-wing, uneducated, eternally yesterday's and unteachable Saxons has been running through the gazettes for years. The fact that local media are also involved and run appropriate "dashing" is just a side note. We have now reached the level of a death threat. It is a new escalation, after there have been several arson attacks on construction site vehicles and machines at my company, after I was continuously defamed, insulted and discredited on social networks with impunity and unfortunately also largely without comment. It stays less and less with words, certainly not with words among Democrats. More and more deeds follow: arson attacks, destruction, intimidation and now also tangible threats. Anyone who goes public has to endure a lot. That is normal. As a city councillor, employer and someone who also speaks out publicly, I have to tolerate and accept opposition and different opinions. I even welcome this, because I am aware that success – be it professional or political – is always based on exchange, dialogue and controversy. Other opinions, including tough verbal arguments, enrich the diversity of opinions and democratic cooperation. However, the limit is reached when crimes are committed, people are intimidated personally or in their own environment and pilloried, and violence breaks out. Those who think differently are not fair game. The family, the employees, the circle of friends, the customers and suppliers, the social environment of those who think differently is not fair game. But instead of putting a stop to agitators and character assassins, many stand passively consuming or actively supporting and commenting on the sidelines and take benevolent note of the spectacle. Anyone who does not conform to the ideas of a minority, but which stylizes itself as the mouthpiece of the well-meaning majority, is apparently allowed to use violence with impunity. The perpetrators are then celebrated in the (social) media. I pay taxes, employ several hundred people, donate significant sums to social and charitable causes, I am involved in the city council and in other municipal committees, I support children, young people, sports and culture and the political-pluralistic opinion-forming, but was accused of "Reich citizenship" - by a local civil servant. This is not only illogical, it is an accusation that specifically attacks my personal rights and integrity. Posts and tweets are now opinion-forming. Because there is no other explanation for the fact that individual secrets in social networks repeatedly manage to be printed in the largest regional daily newspaper - almost always connoted from the perspective of those who position themselves aggressively against me and my company. The Saat the rush is on. When the lawyer of the above-mentioned municipal official talks about "moving the armed forces", recognizes violence as a means of political disputes in several places and even the Minister of Justice of the Free State of Saxony is of the opinion that one is to blame for the violence, that happens to you when you are “on the road somewhere else”. All of this remains largely uncommented in the media. Corresponding evidence is attached to this statement. It also goes uncommented when local politicians move among left-wing extremist actors who have little in common with the constitution wish to undergo an examination. There can only be one opinion, it seems. Those who do not fit into the image of a loud minority should be pilloried in social and media circles. The aggressors are few, but they occupy the space left to them by the silent majority. And that this small, loud, increasingly radicalizing minority does not correspond to the majority opinion, I experience every day in e-mails and letters of approval. It is time that more people got involved and spoke up, that a debate can finally take place again that is not based on prejudices in the social networks, a largely one-sided reporting in the daily press and abuse,but allows controversy and accepts different thinking and being different. That is what my commitment strives for. I have never participated in such verbal attacks. It was always others who targeted and attacked me. Inhibitions are falling. Linguistic violence becomes routine. But this verbal violence is now followed by tangible attacks - intimidation, death and other threats as well as targeted attacks on my social environment and my employees are the order of the day. I wonder when the real aggressors, the enemies of democracy and pluralism, the downplayers of violence and the perpetrators of defamation will be pilloried in the same way. There is massive inequality in the political debate and in media attention. In the context of the debate, the media are not fulfilling their task of reporting objectively. The consequences are then borne by others – the people in the region.

Many politicians and citizens of the region, including Bautzen's mayor Alexander Ahrens and AfD member of parliament Frank Peschel, took a stand and strongly condemned the death threat.

Source: Death threats, violence and injustice as a means of (local) political debate? – Jörg Drews (drews-bautzen.de)