STP mourns former Bundestag Vice President Thomas Oppermann (SPD)

According to the Göttingen-based human rights organization Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), Thomas Oppermann, the late former Bundestag Vice President and member of the SPD in Göttingen, was very committed to human rights. "Oppermann accompanied and supported our human rights work actively for many years. He took part in countless events and human rights actions we organized, met persecuted people from all over the world in his office as a member of parliament, and was personally committed to the release of political prisoners. Even during his term of office as Vice President of the German Parliament, he always had an open ear for our concerns and consistently stood up for human rights worldwide. His sudden death will leave a deep gap in the circle of those in the Bundestag who are committed to human rights," stated Ulrich Delius, the STP's Director, in Göttingen on Monday.

His commitment to human rights in Turkey and the Middle East will not be forgotten. He personally campaigned for the release of Kurdish political prisoners, he traveled to their trials and visited them in detention. Thus, he also visited Selahattin Demirtas, the arbitrarily imprisoned Kurdish opposition politician and leader of the HDP party, in prison. He also campaigned for the inclusion of imprisoned political prisoners in the protection program of the German Parliament "Parlamentarier schützen Parlamentarier" (“Parliamentarians protect parliamentarians”). 

As Vice President of the Bundestag, he met many persecuted members of religious and ethnic minorities from the Middle East – and he encouraged them to continue their fight for human rights. "His encouraging words and deeds were important for many persecuted people in the Middle East, as their persecutors could be sure that their crimes would not go unnoticed by the German Bundestag," Delius emphasized.  

Last December, Thomas Oppermann supported a vigil of the STP in the city center of Göttingen – an attempt to support abducted Yazidis.