According to consistent media reports, the Jusos Bayern have decided to take an extraordinary step: Arif Taşdelen, General Secretary of the SPD Bavaria, is no longer allowed to attend party youth events. Kilian Maier, chairman of Jusos Bayern, confirmed this to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” (SZ). Neither he nor Taşdelen initially responded to a request from stern.
The reason for the decision is said to be that female Juso members complained about inappropriate behavior by Taşdelen towards them. The “Bayerischer Rundfunk” (BR) mentions a specific case: Taşdelen is said to have requested the cell phone number of a young candidate for the state parliament at the Gillamoos festival in Abensberg. According to SPD co-chair Ronja Endres, Tasdelen was concerned with ensuring the flow of information during the election campaign, reports BR. According to Endres, she did not find any further personal interest. The person addressed apparently perceived it differently.
According to the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”, Taşdelen’s lawyer wrote, among other things, that there were two cases in which his “communication (…) was felt to be inappropriate”. Juso boss Maier, on the other hand, speaks of more than two cases in the SZ.
According to his lawyer, Taşdelen was not heard before the Juso decision and was “very upset” when he found out about it, writes the “SZ”. But he is now doing “awareness coaching” in order to formulate more carefully in the future.
According to the newspaper, the SPD in Bavaria has been discussing complaints about Taşdelen controversially for some time, although none of the previously known allegations against the SPD general secretary are likely to be criminally relevant. Older, male SPD members in particular often consider the allegations to be exaggerated. Some are said to even speak of “hypersensitivity” among some SPD women. The Jusos, on the other hand, refer to the free economy and its greater sensitivity to this topic.
Sources: “Sueddeutsche.de”, “br.de”.
