A petition has been started in Berlin aimed against ticket inspectors harassing, discriminating or hitting passengers on the Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG). The response now to the service’s moto ‘Because we love you’ is ‘we are afraid.’
Passengers are now collecting signatures for a petition that they have submitted to the House Representatives, they have also made an announcement that they will visit the chairman of the supervisory board, Ramona Pop, and chief executive, Eva Kreienkamp, to again voice their demands.
Berliner Zeitung, the organiser of the petition, reported that actress Annabelle Mandeng said that it is against the law for physical violence to be used against people just because they are travelling without a valid BVG ticket.
She made it clear that no acts of violence were taken towards her during ticket controls but the Black Womxn Matter Germany group documented cases in which the question of the ticket was followed closely by violence which were approaches the inspectors used to push boundaries.
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Annabelle Mandeng said the target is not only people of colour but everyone should be concerned. The focus widens into all train inspectors and not just those available in Berlin.
The BVG had already responded to the petition with an unsatisfactory answer without proper actions in the route towards solving the problem.
“Ticket inspectors and security personnel spread fear and horror on public transport in our city,” the petition said. “Racial discrimination, discrimination based on age, social status and gender, personalities, humiliation and even physical violence – all in the name of a missing ticket? Basic rights also apply to people without a valid ticket. It is enough!”
“It is time for structural solutions,” they say. One of the demands: “The parliamentary review and establishment of a commission of inquiry to clarify systematic discrimination and violence by security personnel in public transport in Berlin in this legislative period.”
Source: Berliner Zeitung