Elif Eralp, the top political candidate for the Left party in Berlin, has indirectly confirmed reports from “Spiegel” suggesting she feels intimidated by individuals suspected of sympathizing with Hamas. On Thursday in Berlin, she announced that “private, internal material has been published.”
Stating her resolve, Eralp asserted that “I will not be intimidated by anyone else.” She found the concern for her family to be a normal consequence of the “partially truly poisoned” debates of recent weeks and months. Furthermore, she declared her commitment to ensuring the safety of all Berliners should she become Governing Mayor, pledging to tackle organized crime and violence using “all resources available to me.” She underlined that this commitment applies to anyone who glorifies violence, calling it her promise to the citizens of Berlin.
“Spiegel”‘s reporting stemmed from a version of an interview her campaign authorized the magazine to conduct earlier in the week. According to the report, the written material that Eralp’s spokespeople allegedly sent back to “Spiegel” contained accidental comments and notes left by Eralp and her team. For instance, Eralp reportedly decided to remove a specific “Spiegel” question and her own response regarding Ibrahim Ibrahim, a person accused of Hamas sympathies. Instead, she included a longer text, seemingly intended for internal use, explaining why she would not name him: “I cannot put myself and my family in danger for “Spiegel”,” the “Spiegel” reported she wrote in the document, followed by the question: “What do we do now? Can we cancel the whole interview?”
The report further explained that Eralp justified her fear of publicly naming specific individuals, such as Ibrahim, by referencing past advice from the State Criminal Police Office, which she claims told her in the past to “never name concrete individuals.” She noted that previous advice related to Organized Crime (OK), but now the concern involved people with ties to Hamas. She stated that she “should never have agreed to the interview.”
Eralp’s spokespeople also informed “Spiegel” that as a mayoral candidate, the Left party politician had been facing daily insults, threats, and hostility for months.
