The city councilor Selma Yilmaz-Ilkhan is to give up her mandate after a request from the coalition of SPD, CDU and FDP.

The background to this is the public prosecutor's investigations into the "Institute for Tolerance and Civil Courage" association for possible misappropriation of donations.

In this context, the suspicion also arose that the voter group “Wir sind Hanau” (WsH) could have financed election campaign activities with funds from donations to the “Institute”.

There are close personal ties between the WsH, the "Institute" and the Foreigners' Advisory Board.

Yilmaz-Ilkhan is chair of the parliamentary group WsH and "Hanauer Bürgerunion".

Her husband Ferdi Ilkhan heads the Institute for Tolerance and Civil Courage, and Yilmaz-Ilkhan is also a member.

She was also chairwoman of the Foreigners Advisory Board,

Luise Glaser-Lotz

Correspondent for the Rhein-Main-Zeitung for the Main-Kinzig district.

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The Foreigners' Advisory Board played a key role in its establishment.

The purpose of the foundation was the use of donations and project funds after the racist attack on February 19, 2020, in which nine people with a migration background were murdered.

The investigations are particularly concerned with a donation from the company Heraeus of around 80,000 euros.

Half of the money went to the "Institute", with the city of Hanau acting as an intermediary.

Declaration of honor is a long time coming

Because there had been no activity for months, the city demanded the sum back.

After the "institute" had missed several deadlines, the money actually flowed into a custody account recently.

But the investigations are ongoing.

The additional suspicion that had arisen in the meantime that money from the treasury of the “Institute” could have been used by the WsH chaired by Yilmaz-Ilkhan for party work for election campaign purposes called the coalition into action.

She demanded a "declaration of honor" from the WsH that no money had flowed from the "institute" for election campaign purposes.

The group of voters did not comply with this request.

A press release assured that no donations or other funds from the Hanau Association for Tolerance and Civil Courage had been used to finance the WsH election campaign.

However, after a former member of the WsH publicly expressed this suspicion, the coalition partners investigated.

"We cannot understand why the WsH group did not make a declaration of honour.

In our constitutional state, of course, the presumption of innocence applies, and a declaration of honor could have supported this substantially, ”write the group leaders of the coalition groups Maximilian Bieri (SPD), Isabelle Hemsley (CDU) and Henrik Statz (FDP).

The good reputation of the honorary Hanau local politics is acutely endangered.

"It must be the goal of all of us

to avert damage to our democratic structures.

We have only borrowed the trust of the citizens of Hanau for five years, and all city councilors have to be extremely sensitive when it comes to this trust.”

In the donation affair, no one is as central as parliamentary group leader Selma Yilmaz-Ilkhan.

As chairwoman of the Advisory Council for Foreigners, she played a key role in the decision in summer 2020 to transfer the donations of around 40,000 euros to the "Institute for Tolerance and Civil Courage" association, which she co-founded at the time.

In late autumn 2020, Yilmaz-Ilkhan was a leader in founding the WsH voter group and ran as the top candidate for the 2021 local elections.

"Probably no one can explain more about the donation affair than Ms. Yilmaz-Ilkhan, probably no one is more closely involved with the story."

"No donations received from the association"

In order to protect the democratic culture and structure of Hanau's local politics, the Hanau coalition partners are once again calling on the WsH voter group to submit a declaration of honour.

Yilmaz-Ilkhan is also said to have suspended her seat on the city council until the matter has been resolved.

After investigations by the public prosecutor's office, house searches, missed deadlines for repayments and suspected campaign financing, this is a matter of honour.

"My client did not receive any donations from the Association for Tolerance and Civil Courage Hanau for the purpose of financing the election campaign," said Ludwigsburg lawyer Wolfgang Riegger, who represents Yilmaz-Ilkhan.

Therefore, she will continue to exercise the mandate given by the electorate.

She is not currently thinking of retiring.

According to the lawyer, the coalition cannot count on a declaration of honor.

Such has no legal relevance.

It is just a political tool used by the coalition representatives to paint the WsH and Selma Yilmaz-Ilkhan in a bad light politically.

Yilmaz-Ilkhan has been active in Hanau on a voluntary basis for around 20 years.

She is known to both the coalition and the people of Hanau.

She was an active member of the SPD for 14 years until she left in May 2021.

"For my client, such an aggressive approach by the coalition is disconcerting," says Riegger.