Germany examines seizing passports of suspected extremists
Angela Merkel’s government is considering law changes so authorities can confiscate the German passports of dual-national citizens who are suspected of terrorism.
A junior interior minister, Stephan Mayer, said that he was proposing an urgent change to the law. Depriving a German of citizenship has been prohibited under the country’s post-Second World War constitution.
Mr Mayer, described as a lawand-order hardliner in Mrs Merkel’s centre-right party, has said that confiscation of German passports of suspected extremists was his “pressing goal”.
He did not respond to a request for comments from The National.
As many as 4.3 million Germans hold two or more passports, the Centre for Political Education in Bonn said, quoting census figures. The most common second passports are Russian, Polish and Turkish.
On Sunday, six men were arrested on suspicion of plotting an attack on the Berlin halfmarathon.
While authorities said the men, aged between 18 and 21, displayed a suspicious level of interest in the race, they were released on Monday.
No explosives were found in their homes and there was no indication of a concrete plan.
Chris Murray, research fellow at the Progressive Policy think tank in London, said the UK introduced a similar law several years ago.
“There were concerns that the UK could use the mechanism to strip a dual national of their UK nationality while engaged in suspected terrorist activities overseas, and then absolve itself of responsibility towards its national in the event of, for example, a drone strike,” Mr Murray said.
He said that depriving terrorist suspects of passports was also a controversial issue in France in the last year of Francois Hollande’s government.
“The proposal, after the Bataclan and other attacks, was to strip dual nationals involved in terrorism of their French nationality,” Mr Murray said.
“This was seen as controversial as the vast majority of French dual nationals are French-born descendants of North African immigrants.
“It was regarded as saying that one set of French citizens had a less secure grasp of citizenship than their sole-national compatriots. Ultimately the justice minister Christiane Taubira resigned over the issue.
“One would imagine that similar issues are at stake here – the responsibility to citizens overseas and the implications for the wider dual-national population.”
Mr Mayer is part of Bavaria’s Christian Social Union, part of Mrs Merkel’s conservative bloc in the coalition government, which includes the centre-left Social Democrats.
He also hinted that Georgia and Armenia could be added to Germany’s list of countries where would-be asylum seekers are presumed safe.
The move would accelerate the processing of asylum applications.
Last year, 3,462 Georgian citizens and 3,857 Armenian citizens applied for asylum, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees said.