Enlarge image

Senator for Culture Chialo: “Must take legal and critical voices seriously”

Photo: Soeren Stache / dpa

Because of legal concerns, Berlin's Senator for Culture Joe Chialo (CDU) has repealed the anti-discrimination clause in funding.

"Due to legal concerns that the anti-discrimination clause is not legally secure in this form, it will no longer be used in funding notices from now on," the cultural administration announced on Monday.

However, the goal of a “discrimination-free culture” remains.

»I will continue to work for the non-discriminatory development of Berlin culture.

But I have to take seriously the legal and critical voices that saw the introduced clause as a restriction on artistic freedom," said Chialo, according to the statement.

The debates are needed now more than ever.

At the beginning of January, the cultural administration announced that it would require recipients of public funding to, among other things, commit against anti-Semitism by means of a clause.

The basis for this should be a definition of anti-Semitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and its expansion as supplemented by the Federal Government.

In his own words, Senator for Culture Chialo wanted to ensure that public funds did not promote racist, anti-Semitic, anti-queer or otherwise exclusionary forms of expression.

According to information from the cultural administration on Monday, the clause was introduced around a month ago.

In an open letter (now deleted), several hundred cultural workers protested against “compulsory confession.”

There was a demonstration in front of the Berlin House of Representatives.

Apparently the clause was also inadequately discussed with the coalition partner SPD.

A campaign called “Strike Germany” also called for strikes on German cultural institutions worldwide, also with reference to the clause and the definition of anti-Semitism it contains.

One of the signatories is the Nobel Prize winner for literature Annie Ernaux - but so far she has apparently not drawn any practical conclusions.

Feb/dpa