Tilman Zülch (born on September 2, 1939 in Libina, Sudetenland, present day Czech Republic) is a German human rights activist. He is the founder and general secretary of the Society for Threatened Peoples. Since 2012, German state prosecutors are investigating Tilman Zülch, the Secretary-General of two organizations, the Society for Threatened Peoples STP (GfbV-Deutschland) and Society for Threatened Peoples International STPI (GfbV-International), for embezzlement of money. The accused is alleged that he enriched himself at the expense of the organization's assets, announced state prosecutor Frank-Michael Laue. In addition, Tilman Zülch is accused of having given money to other individuals and therefore to have harmed the organization. In November 2011, during the STP's annual meeting two former board of directors who had filed their findings of embezzlement of the organizations assets and started the public prosecutors' investigations were ousted. Even so, the legitimacy of the election was contested by the regional court Göttingen, the higher regional court in Braunschweig later decided that the new five-member board election in November 2011 had been legally convened (File Reference 2W 42/12). Consequently, the new elected board unanimously denied the accusations against Zülch previously being made by the former board of directors – and during the STP's annual meeting on November 3, 2012, the two auditors of the STP-Germany declared the allegations against Tilman Zülch to be unsubstantiated. It is noted that one of the two auditors was a decade ago the financial managing director of the organization when about one million German DM were missing from the organizations yearly assets, and the Society for Threatened Peoples was at the brink of bankruptcy. Even so the German Central Institute for Social Affairs once again awarded the Society for Threatened Peoples its Seal of Approval in recognition of its responsible use of donations. in December 2012, two branches of the NGO Society for Threatened Peoples International faced criminal charges for fraud and embezzlement of donations and the organizations assets and are currently under state prosecutors investigation in two countries, Germany and Switzerland.