USA TODAY International Edition
Despite attacks, Germany will still offer safe haven
Policy of accepting migrants still stands
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday Germany will stand by its principles of offering safe haven to migrants and not bow to fears stoked by a series of attacks in one week, including two claimed by the Islamic State.
Cutting short a vacation to meet with reporters after the na- tion’s refugee policy came under fire, Merkel vowed to ratchet up security measures. “Fear can’t be a good counsel for political action,” she said in Berlin.
She acknowledged the shocking nature of the terror attacks, including three by refugees seeking asylum in Germany. In the two attacks claimed by the Islamic State, a Syrian refugee blew himself up in Ansbach Sunday and left 15 people wounded. On July 18, an Afghan teenager wielding an ax wounded five passengers on a train in Würzburg.
“Taboos of civilization are being broken,” Merkel told reporters, referring to the violence in Germany as well as recent attacks in the United States, France, Turkey and Belgium.
The remarks come six months after more than 1,200 women filed complaints with police that they were groped in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve by men described as being of North African and Middle Eastern descent. The assaults intensified an anti- immigration sentiment among many in Germany.
The assaults intensified pressure on Merkel’s open- door policy toward asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in countries that include Syria, Iraq and Eritrea.
On Thursday, Merkel said her 2015 policy of accepting hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees still stands. At the time, Europe was awash with migrants from war- torn Syria and other nations.
“I am still convinced today that ‘ we can do it.’ It is our historic duty and this is a historic challenge in times of globalization,” she said, according to Agence France-Presse. “We have already established very, very much in the last 11 months.
Germany took in more than a million migrants in 2016. Between 25,000 and 30,000 Syrians have sought asylum in Germany each month.
The policy has frustrated a majority of Germans, with more than 60% saying the number of refugees being accepted have become too high, according to polling published by YouGov.