‘Avoid Refugee’: Berlin Police Given Newspeak Language Guide

Police in Berlin have been handed a new set of speech guidelines that ban the use of certain terms such as popular terms for refugees and calls for more gender-sensitive language, as well as respecting pronouns.

The 29-page language guide was created by the State Office of Criminal Investigation (LKA) and aims to make police use more politically correct terms when dealing with the public, including asylum seekers and those from the LGBT community.

According to the guide itself, the purpose is to allow police and other civil servants to write and peak in a manner that is “sensitive” and claims the language used should be “not dictated by the majority population, but by those affected themselves,” the German tabloid Bild reports.

Part of the guide tells police not to use the term “fluchtlinge” for “refugee, a term that also means “fugitives” or “escapees” in German, and instead use alternative words or terms such as “people seeking protection” or “protection seekers” instead of asylum seekers.

“The use of other terms is clearly discouraged,” the document states and includes terms such as mentally handicapped, headscarf-wearer, and hermaphrodite. It also calls on officers to refrain from using the term black person and use “dark-skinned” or “coloured” instead.

According to the guide, police should also respect the gender identities of those they come into contact with and make an effort to respect and not question the use of various pronouns.

“It is elementary to listen attentively and to perceive how the person in question describes himself. This self-designation as well as the self-chosen pronoun are to be respected in any case and not questioned,” the guide states.

The new speech guidelines come just months after the Berlin police announced they would no longer be reporting the migration backgrounds of criminal suspects under the age of 21 after the Senate of Berlin claimed the policy was not relevant.

Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at @TomlinsonCJ or email at ctomlinson(at)breitbart.com.