German legislator: Balkan Romani "tramps" are coming to fill their bellies

The Social Democratic Party (SPD) in Bremen, Germany has a serious problem. Party member Martin Korol, who has been a member of the state legislature for less than a month (since 12 February) has published an attack against Romani people on his website, describing them as "tramps" from the Balkans whom he believes are coming to Bremen for the sole purpose of "filling their bellies".

Despite the fact that Korol has been attacking Romani people on his website for almost two years, his colleagues and the public only noticed it last month, after a promotion in his political career put him more in the spotlight. Under pressure from the publicity, Korol finally removed the much-criticized passage from his website and rewrote several others.

Korol, who is a retired teacher, has written that Romani people live intellectually and socially in the Middle Ages and consider it their right to beat women’s teeth in. He is infamous not only for his attacks on Romani people, but also for his verbal assaults on women, whom he claims are starting to take over the country together with migrants.

According to Korol, Romani people are sexually out of control, avoid work, and tend to become criminals and prostitutes. He has written that Romani people are not coming to Germany from Bulgaria and Romania with their entire clans for political reasons, but so they can "stuff themselves", as he termed it. He allegedly got this information after working in Sofia at some point.

Members of the Social Democratic faction in the state legislature have been embittered by the scandal and are now assuring the public that these opinions are Korol’s, not that of the party. The chair of the SPD faction, Björn Tschöpe, said the opinions published by Korol on his website are racist.

Since last Friday the party has been pressuring Korol to leave it. The chair of the state-level SPD, Andreas Bovenschulte, is reportedly initiating disciplinary proceedings against Korol which could result in his removal from the party.

For the time being the racist legislator is refusing to leave the faction or to turn in his party card. He has also retracted an earlier statement for good measure in which he said only graduates of German schools should have the opportunity to run for the legislature.

Korol has said he views the notion of resigning from the party as idiotic. The state prosecutor in Bremen is now investigating whether the legislator’s published opinions rise to the level of felony incitement against a national group.