SPIEGEL ONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Thilo Sarrazin, the German Social Democrat who attracted attention last year with his controversial book claiming that immigrants to Germany were dumbing down the country, will not be booted out of the party. He apologized on Thursday and the case against him was quickly abandoned.After a mere five hours of debate, Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) formally withdrew a petition on Thursday to revoke party membership for firebrand politician Thilo Sarrazin, a former board member of Germany's central bank who drew widespread criticism for his extremely critical descriptions of Muslim immigrants in a bestselling book.
In an announcement that came surprisingly early, an arbitration committee of a local Berlin district chapter of the SPD -- which had been hearing petitions submitted from officials at the local, state and federal chapters of the party -- said all the requests for Sarrazin's exclusion from the Social Democrats had been withdrawn. The decision came after Sarrazin issued a statement in which he said it had not been his intention with his book to "discriminate against groups, particularly migrants." This was the second failed attempt in two years to ban Sarrazin from the center-left party.
The head of the arbitration committee, Sybille Uken, said a "constructive, respectful, serious and intense discussion" had been carried about by those involved in the case. "We have agreed not to allow the SPD to be divided," she said. Andrea Nahles, the national party's secretary general who led the proceedings against Sarrazin, refused to comment on the decision to drop the case, as did Sarrazin. » | dsl -- with wires | Friday, April 22, 2011
