Germany migrant sex attacks: the far-Right backlash
Extremists smash foreign shops in night of carnage
GERMANY feared a new march of the far- Right last night after an anti-immigration protest sparked by the Cologne sex attacks descended into a race riot.
Hundreds of masked hooligans rampaged through another German city calling for all asylum seekers to be deported and the borders to be closed as unrest following the New Year’s Eve assaults grew.
Neo-Nazi groups have been using the attacks on more than 500 women to recruit new activists and incite violence on the streets. The fresh wave of disorder is adding to long-held concerns from German intelligence services that the far-Right groups are organising into terrorist cell structures.
Dozens of bars and shops were ransacked and cars set on fire during the riot in the eastern city of Leipzig on Monday evening.
The mayor, Burkhard Jung, spoke of ‘terror on the streets’.
Police arrested 211 suspects after an anti-refugee march got out of control. Thugs threw fireworks at police officers as they targeted businesses run by immigrants in the trendy suburb of Connewitz.
On one stretch of road several hundred yards long every shop front was smashed. A kebab shop was destroyed.
The demonstration was held to mark the first anniversary of a local far-Right organisation Legida – a spin-off of national anti-immigrant group Pegida, which has been capitalising on what happened in Cologne to stage rallies.
One banner read, ‘Rape refugees stay away’, with the wording above a silhouette of a women running from knife-wielding attackers. Chants included: ‘We are the people’, ‘Resistance!’ and ‘Deport them!’
Organisers from neo-Nazi groups had planned online in advance the violent breakaway from the main rally, calling it a ‘storm in Leipzig’.
Police had to cordon off several streets and use a water cannon to get back control. Five officers and a news reporter were among those injured. A bus of pro-asylum demonstrators was attacked while firemen had to tackle a blaze in the attic of one building set alight by a wayward firework.
The mayor, Mr Jung, said: ‘It was naked violence that took place here, nothing more. There must be consequences.’
In the city of Potsdam, next to Berlin, clashes also broke out on Monday night between anti-refugee protesters and those on a counter demonstration.
Seven police officers were injured as stones and firecrackers were thrown at them. A police van and a bus were also damaged.
On Sunday night six Pakistanis and one Syrian were attacked in Cologne as gangs went on a ‘manhunt’ against foreigners. Women have claimed that during the New Year’s Eve festivities in Cologne they were assaulted by mobs of young men, mainly of North African origin.
Complaints have been made of similar assaults by alleged migrants in other German cities including Hamburg, Munich and Berlin as well as in Austria, Sweden, Finland and Switzerland. In the latest attack, three Syrian teenagers, all aged under 15, have been arrested for groping two sisters, aged 17 and 14, at a swimming pool in Munich.
The former head of Germany’s constitutional court yesterday
‘Terror on the streets’
accused Angela Merkel of ‘glaring policy failures’ on the migration crisis and demanded a ‘U-turn’ after more than one million claimed asylum there last year.
Hans- Jurgen Papier told the newspaper Handelsblatt that he wanted the German Chancellor to ‘temporarily suspend’ the EU’s Schengen border-free travel zone.
The German government yesterday announced plans to ease the rules on deporting foreign criminals after Mrs Merkel admitted that Europe had lost control of the refugee situation. She said: ‘Now all of a sudden we are facing the challenge that refugees are coming to Europe and we are vulnerable, as we see, because we do not yet have the order, the control, that we would like to have.’
German ministers said any custo- dial sentence for sexual assault or serious property damage will be grounds for deportation.
Germany’s FBI, the Federal Criminal Office, said that the surrounding and sexual molestation of women was a ‘familiar phenomenon in some Arab countries’.
The Cologne attacks are also being used to build anti-immigrant sentiment in Eastern European countries that have opposed Mrs Merkel’s plan to share out asylum seekers using quotas.
Slovak prime minister Robert Fico said in a television discussion that migrants have become a ‘protected species’ in Germany. Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban said in his weekly radio interview that migration into Europe must be completely stopped. ÷ Asylum seekers in Denmark will have their cash and jewellery seized to help pay for their stays at hostels and their food.
Police will be allowed to search migrants’ clothes and luggage for valuables as part of a move designed to deter people from going there.
Arrivals will be permitted to keep money and possessions worth up to 10,000 kroner (£1,000) but most other possessions will be confiscated and given to the state. Only items for personal use and those of sentimental value such as wedding rings will be exempt. The Danish government has secured a parliamentary majority for the proposal.
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