The family of Ferhat Ünvar, one of four Turks killed by far-right terrorist Tobias Rathjen, found themselves the target of Rathjen’s father again. Hans-Gerd Rathjen issued death threats in a letter addressed to Ünvar’s mother, Serpil, according to reports in the German media.
The 24-year-old Ünvar was among nine victims of Rathjen in the German town of Hanau in 2020. Tobias Rathjen killed Ünvar and others in attacks targeting two cafes on Feb. 19, 2020. All of his victims in the cafes had migrant backgrounds. Rathjen later killed his mother and himself.
His father was accused of sending multiple letters containing death threats to the families of the victims, who sought a restraining order against him. Last March, a court ordered his imprisonment for violating the restraining order and failure to pay a 4,200 euro ($4,589.13) fine for the violation. He has violated the order six times, often approaching the families and in some cases, in the company of an aggressive dog, according to accounts of the families.
Germany-based website Perspektive reported that the elder Rathjen has been showing up on the doorstep of Ünvar’s mother and a youth center that Ferhat Ünvar frequented in the past. The website reported that he also sent a letter addressed to Serpil Ünvar, urging her “to leave Germany.”
The father has been unapologetic in his son’s actions as letters he sent to prosecutors investigating the case indicated. Last year, he was ordered to pay a fine for hurling racist insults at the relatives of the Hanau attacks victims.
The Turkish community in Germany, one of the largest with a population of over 3 million people, grew out of small groups of Turkish "guest workers" brought for rebuilding post-World War II Germany. Over the decades, they rose to a prominent place in society, but neo-Nazi threats prevailed as a major threat to the community fighting xenophobia or rather, an anti-Turkish sentiment, evident in attacks specifically targeting them. Neo-Nazi groups, to which authorities turned a blind eye most of the time, are responsible for a range of crimes, from minor acts of vandalism to Turkish mosques to serial murders.
Racism has been on the rise in Germany with far-right groups’ prevalent propaganda in the country especially in light of the “refugee crisis” or influx of refugees particularly from Syria, where unrest in 2011 escalated into an all-out civil war. More than 1,100 attacks perpetrated last year are attributed to far-right extremists in Germany. Attacks targeted migrants, refugees or political opponents of the far-right ideology and injured at least 675 people.
