Hambacher Forst: relatives of the dead journalist criticized by the NRW government

The family of freelance journalist Steffen Meyn, who died in the Hambach Forest in September, is making serious accusations against the North Rhine-Westphalia government. Art student in Cologne, Meyn documented the cleaning work of the building authorities and the police. He fell on September 19 on a suspension bridge, built between two tree houses and succumbing soon after.

In an open letter, which is SPIEGEL, Meyns accuses members of the NRW government for acting irreverently and spreading lies related to the accident.

"The statements of politicians and the behavior of the authorities have intensified our sorrow and our pain, and we do not want to give up what has been published about the death of Steffens by the state government" , indicates the letter of November 26, 2018. est. The letter is signed with "Family Meyn and Family Fritsche". The winners are the NRW State Chancellery, Prime Minister Armin Laschet (CDU) and Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU).

The corpse was autopsied "against the wishes of the parents," says the letter. The responsibility of the Minister of the Interior, according to which the builders of the suspension bridge are guilty of the death of Meyn, is perceived by the family as "unbearable". Reul's badertion that the militants made malicious remarks after the crash was "scandalous" and "patently erroneous". "We think the Interior Minister is using the death of Steffens to rush the inhabitants of the treehouse." There is an instrumentalisation of the death of Meyn on the part of politics, which triggers "indignation and anger" among relatives.

The survivors also criticize the handling of the clearing teams with the Steffen Meyn memorial in the Hambacher Forst. "Our planted flowers had barely been allowed to stand for 24 hours," the letter says. "We found this extremely rash and irreverent, especially since not all family members had come to visit the memorial site and the place of the accident."

Parents also discuss the survival of the Hambach open pit mine. The provincial government's task would be "to develop intelligent concepts to provide workers in the extraction of lignite harmful to the climate a professional perspective," write the parents.

In October, after the removal of the tree houses, RWE wanted to cut a large part of the forest for the Hambach lignite mine. However, the Higher Administrative Court of Münster has made a preliminary stop of the compensation. Since then, the Hambacher Forst is no longer a business site, but as a forest accessible to the public, it is subject to the Forest Law.