"NRW shows respect!" - on August 25, the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of the Interior launched a campaign to send a message against violence against police, firefighters and rescue workers. In Düsseldorf, Minister Herbert Reul lamented the increasing attacks against emergency services and emphasized: "With this campaign, we are standing behind the people who help other people through their job, their vocation or their voluntary commitment."

As a first step, the ministry has had 30,000 pins produced with the slogan "NRW shows respect!" on them. Citizens can now order them via the website of the Ministry of the Interior (https://www.im.nrw/nrw-zeigt-respekt, maximum order quantity: ten) and wear them to set an example together.

The solidarity campaign is the result of an initiative by all parliamentary groups in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament. The MPs had secured funding of 100,000 euros per year up to and including 2022.

Reul said: "Emergency services are increasingly confronted with aggressive behavior, verbal hostility and physical attacks. Every year, several thousand rescue workers, firefighters, THW and emergency services personnel and police officers in our country experience this. Uniformed personnel are obstructed and endangered in the performance of their work."

Although this is not a new phenomenon, the Minister stated: "However, it is new in its manifestation and perception in this form. Anyone who attacks rescue workers or police officers is attacking us as a society." According to a study published last year by Ruhr University Bochum, 64% of the firefighters, paramedics and emergency doctors surveyed had been victims of violence at least once.