Written by Kate Sears, CNN
If there is a lesson to be learned from the events of the past few days in Germany, the health minister does not believe it lies in political statements or in nationalistic rhetoric.
Heated public debate has since heated up after many lawmakers — including the health minister — urged increased security in the wake of Sunday’s horrific truck attack on the street outside a synagogue in Munich.
Despite assurances from Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann that the forthcoming package of the federal government will be less divisive than expected and a backlash from opposition parties, Ms. Uhrmann said in a statement Tuesday evening that any further use of mass lockdown practices will have to be monitored by a parliamentary commission.
Ahead of her announcement, the Health Minister had defended both past and current use of the “blanket lockdown” procedure, which uses the army to conduct a pre-planned security drill after which authorities enforce 24-hour ban orders to allow for peaceable assembly.
A spokesperson said that there was, “a rising tendency for states to order all schools to close. This can often start as a police drill.
“The panorama is currently different, however, and in Bavaria there are schools that receive many more precautionary warnings in the year.”
Ms. Uhrmann said that extreme terror threats could still necessitate a lockdown and invasion of schools.
Asked whether she would ever support a lockdown as a response to a serious attack scenario, she told the BBC, “I absolutely wouldn’t say that such a plan wouldn’t be possible.
“This is the subject of discussions among the different states and we have to bear in mind that this is not a security but more a precautionary measure.
“However, if it is not the case that we have enough access to information to predict exactly what might happen, then we have to take this into account, in cooperation with both police and the public as well.”