German health minister shocked by death threats to children

German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach on Tuesday said death threats to both him and his family had become a regular feature of life.

Lauterbach has faced growing hostility over government coronavirus restrictions since taking the ministerial role last year.

What did the minister say?

Lauterbach, a trained epidemiologist, said he could no longer park his car outside his home in Cologne, and that he needed personal security with him to go outside at night.

"I'm still being threatened myself, and I'm also receiving shocking death threats for my children," he told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper. "Unfortunately, I can't go outside in the evening without personal security."

Lauterbach has been repeatedly targeted by opponents of his government's coronavirus measures.

Earlier this year, investigators uncovered an anti-state group that was reported to be planning Lauterbach's kidnapping.

Warning that COVID still poses danger

Lauterbach last week warned that Germany was headed towards another surge in COVID-19 infections and criticized a relaxation of quarantine rules in several German states.

Measures to tackle the pandemic in Germany are generally agreed at a nationwide level, although individual states enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy.

Previous threats and violence

Death threats related to lockdown restrictions and vaccination rules have previously been sent to other German politicians including the state premier of Saxony in eastern Germany, Michael Kretschmer.

However, scientists and medics have also become targets, including leading virologist Christian Drosten and Lothar Wieler, head of Robert Koch Institute, Germany's infectious disease control agency.

Germany has a history of violence against political figures, and recent years have seen politicians targeted by the far-right.

The murder of regional Christian Democrat (CDU) politician Walter Lübcke in 2019 led to the conviction of a 48-year-old neo-Nazi.

In 2015, the CDU's Henriette Reker was stabbed by a right-wing extremist during her successful campaign to become mayor of Cologne.

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rc/sms (AFP, dpa)