Selected Events 2008  

Leipzig Consul General Discusses Political Extremism with Bitterfeld Citizens

From right to left: Veit Wolpert, Mark Scheland, forum participants, and Winfried Schubert on the far left (© Mitteldeutsche Zeitung)

March 1, 2008. An audience of nearly 150 - including dozens of high school students - gathered in Bitterfeld, Saxony-Anhalt, for a public forum on "Political extremes: How do they affect me?" Consul General Mark Scheland joined Veit Wolpert, a state legislator, Winfried Schubert, President of the State Constitutional Court, the chief of police for a multi-county area, and an NGO representative in presentations and Q & A. Scheland acquainted the audience and other participants with U.S. legislation defining "hate crime" and on the division of labor between the FBI and state or local police in confronting both violent crime and civil rights abuses. The Consul General also used the occasion to present a token donation of books to the library of the Heinrich-Heine-Gymnasium, a college-prep secondary school that organized the event.