Tilman Zülch, founder of the Society for Threatened Peoples, will turn 75

Tilman Zülch, the founder and Secretary General of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), will be celebrating his 75th birthday on September 2. Under his leadership, the Göttingen-based international human rights organization was founded in 1970, emerging from the "Biafra-Hilfe" in Hamburg. The organization – with its sections and representatives in several European countries, in the United States and in Iraqi Kurdistan – now has around 6,000 members and 20,000 sponsors and donors. Zülch received a number of awards, including the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the honorary citizenship of Sarajevo and the Civil Rights Prize of the Central Council of the German Sinti and Roma. Also, he is the editor of numerous books. In 1993, the STP was granted a consultative status at the United Nations.

Zülch was also driven by his own expulsion from Liebau (in the "Sudetenland") in 1945. He studied economics and politics, but – instead of becoming a typical Hamburg businessman – he took part in countless national and international campaigns against genocide and other crimes against humanity. He was always especially concerned about the rights of persecuted and oppressed ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities and indigenous peoples.

A few days ago, the STP had once again publicly demanded that "tolerated" refugees who have been living in Germany for many years must not be deported. "Most importantly, we must prevent refugee children who were born and raised here from being chased out of a country that has long become their home," Zülch said. At the moment, he is also very concerned about the situation of the Christians and Yazidis in Iraq and Syria, who are persecuted by the extremist terror group "Islamic State". However, there are also many other aboriginal communities and affected peoples all over the world that turn to the STP for help. "They are being run over by what we call ‘achievements’," says Zülch. Keywords such as climate change, energy demands, extraction of natural resources and war against terrorism serve to cover up the struggle for survival of many smaller ethnic groups. Huge dam projects, deforestation, mining and oil drilling are destroying their livelihoods – and in other regions, wars and anti-terror measures have led to a collapse of tourism, the main source of income.

"Power-hungry or unruly dictators, thoughtless governments and reckless corporate giants will not bring us down," says the committed founder of the STP. "We will continue to swim against the current – persistently and ideologically independent!" The process of coming to terms with Germany’s past must not lead to neglecting or tabooing other historical crimes such as Stalinism, the mass expulsions after 1945, or today’s genocide crimes.

"My hopes that the bloody 20th century – in which more than 200 million people got killed in conflicts – will be followed by a century of reason were not fulfilled," he regrets, enumerating the conflict regions of Ukraine, Syria, Israel and Palestine, Iraq, Nigeria, Mali and the Sudan. Also, 300 million indigenous are still being treated as people without rights and are waiting for credible land titles.