MERKEL SLAMS VIGILANTE MOBS.

Anti-immigrant sentiment flares up in protests

BERLIN • Angela Merkel said Tuesday night that “hate in the streets” has no place in Germany, as she condemned anti-immigration vigilante groups attacking foreign migrants.

After the fatal stabbing of a German man — identified Tuesday as Daniel Hillig, a 35-year-old local carpenter of Cuban descent — allegedly by a Syrian and an Iraqi, thousands of protesters marched in the eastern city of Chemnitz for two days, some chasing down people they believed were immigrants.

Police reported assaults by extremists against at least three foreigners, while investigations were opened in 10 cases of protesters performing the Nazi salute, which is illegal in Germany.

“What we have seen is something which has no place in a constitutional democracy,” the German chancellor said. “We have video recordings of (people) hunting down others, of unruly assemblies, and hate in the streets, and that has nothing to do with our constitutional state.”

Horst Seehofer, leader of the Christian Social Union, which is in a governing coalition with Merkel’s party, said “the police in Saxony are in a difficult situation.”

He said the federal government will support them if it becomes necessary.

An estimated 5,000 farright protesters clashed with 1,000 counter protesters on Monday evening, as a Syrian, 23, and an Iraqi, 22, remained under arrest on suspicion of stabbing Hillig to death during a fight in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Several people were injured in the disturbances on Monday as protesters on both sides hurled objects at each other. Police are investigating alleged assaults on a Syrian, an Afghan and a Bulgarian.

Burkhard Lischka, an opposition SPD politician in the interior ministry, told the Rheinische Post: “There is a small right-wing mob in our country that will take every opportunity to enact its violent fantasies of civil war-like conditions on our streets.”

The protests, organized by far-right groups including the Alternative for Germany party, which has seats in parliament, followed a fight on Sunday morning between “a number of people of different nationalities,” during which three men in their 30s were injured.

Unconfirmed rumours said the brawl may have started after a woman was harassed in the street.

Oliver Malchow, of the German police union, warned there could be more “vigilantes and self justice.”

“The police force in Germany is missing 20,000 officers. This is the state’s fault for making cuts to public services,” he said.