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German right-wing extremists planned ‘hunt’ of migrants: reports

Deutsche Welle — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 00:37:56 +0000

A police report seen by German media has found that extreme-right protesters explicitly tried to violently chase down foreigners. Disagreement over whether such a “hunt” took place nearly toppled the German government.

New details have emerged in the investigation into the August 2018 demonstrations in Chemnitz that show extreme right-wing individuals made specific plans to “hunt” migrants and foreign-looking individuals, German media reported.

The news sheds further details on the events one year ago that resulted in Chemnitz taking center stage in discussions on the prevalence of right-wing extremism in Germany and that nearly caused the downfall of Angela Merkel’s national coalition government.

A ‘great readiness to use violence’ in Chemnitz

According to research by German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung, and broadcasters WDR and NDR, the Saxony Criminal Police Office evaluated chat messages exchanged between known members of Chemnitz’s extreme right scene between August 26 and 28.

On August 26, a German national was killed in a stabbing in Chemnitz. Non-German nationals were suspected of the crime, with a 23-year-old Syrian national recently convicted of manslaughter in the crime.

The stabbing led to a week of far-right protests in the city that drew neo-Nazis from across Germany and saw migrants or foreign-looking individuals chased in the streets.

Social media was also used to draw right-wing extremists from across Germany to Chemnitz to take part in anti-immigrant protests

The Saxony report summarized that the demonstrations were marked by “great readiness to use violence against police officials, people with actual or immigrant backgrounds, political opponents and journalists,” the Süddeutsche Zeitung said.

The report also stated that the chat participants used the word “hunt” (“Jagd”) repeatedly as the events in Chemnitz were ongoing, and described wanting to or having violently attacked people of immigrant background.

The document also states that the chat participants boasted among themselves about having successfully hunted supposed migrants.

The chats point to “the actual implementation of violent criminal acts against foreigners,” the report read.

The right-wing violence in Chemnitz unleashed a debate over whether or not foreigners and foreign-looking individuals had been specifically targeted and pursued.

Evidence against doubts that shook the government

The then-president of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen, disputed the idea that such a hunt had taken place and openly questioned the authenticity of videos showing foreign-looking individuals being chased.

Maassen was initially promoted into a different position before being forced into retirement. The events almost toppled Merkel’s government.

The doubts expressed by Maassen, a member of Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), as well as his closeness to the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, triggered a crisis that nearly brought down the government coalition. The co-governing Social Democrats (SPD) demanded his removal. Maassen was eventually forced into retirement.

The Saxony police report is part of an investigation into the August 2018 Chemnitz events and is in the hands of the attorney general’s office for further evaluation.

Death sparks demonstrations

The demonstrations were sparked by a deadly brawl that broke out in the German city of Chemnitz in the early hours of Sunday (August 26). What started out as a war of words resulted in a 35-year-old man being stabbed to death. Hours later, spontaneous, anti-migrant protests took over the streets of Chemnitz.

German-Cuban killed

A German-Cuban man was stabbed in an altercation involving 10 people, several of whom were of “various nationalities,” police sources said. The victim, named only as Daniel H., was apparently well-known among various political groups in the area. Two men in their 30s were also stabbed and seriously injured, and a 22-year-old Iraqi and 23-year-old Syrian are in custody over the killing.

Police reinforcements called

By Sunday afternoon, some 800 people had gathered to protest the man’s death, including far-right groups. Authorities said the crowd was largely uncooperative and threw bottles at police officers. Police reinforcements had to be called in from nearby cities. The mobilizations were spontaneous and are thought to have surfaced following calls to demonstrate on social media.

Misinformation

German authorities said that those far-right groups spread misinformation on the internet. Among the false claims was that the victim of the knife attack died protecting a woman.

Protests and counterprotests

Thousands of far-right and counterdemonstrators faced off in a second day of protest Monday. Several people were injured as objects and fireworks were hurled. Video footage showed the far-right “Pro Chemnitz” movement holding a banner with a quote from early 20th-century poet Anton Günther reading “German and free we aim to be.”

‘No place for Nazis’

Counter-demonstrators denouncing right-wing extremism also took to the streets of Chemnitz. Among the protesters were Antifa, who clashed with right-wing demonstrators.

Author: Louisa Wright

Source: https://www.dw.com/en/german-right-wing-extremists-planned-hunt-of-migrants-reports/a-50176487

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Merkel on brink: Support for Germany coalition PLUMMETS to ALL-TIME LOW

Ciaran McGrath — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 21:03:05 +0000

SUPPORT for Angela Merkel’s German coalition has plummeted to its lowest ever level, a new poll has suggested, with the beleaguered Chancellor beset by problems on all sides as she desperately tries to hold her Government together.

Angela Merkel’s coalition is more unpopular than it has ever been, the poll suggests (Image: GETTY)

The ARD DeutschlandTrend survey put support for Mrs Merkel’s conservative alliance – between her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian allies, the Christian Social Union (CSU) – at 28 percent, down one point from September 6, its lowest ever figure.

Mrs Merkel, who has led Germany since 2005, only narrowly averted the collapse of her coalition government in June after a row between the CDU and the CSU over immigration policy.

The conservative sister parties and their Social Democrat Party (SPD) junior coalition partners this week agreed to oust the head of the BfV domestic agency over accusations that he harboured sympathies to the far-right – but only by effectively giving him a promotion.

The decision to give Hans-Georg Maassen a deputy minister position at the interior ministry was derided as a bad compromise which allowed the ruling parties to paper over deep differences which could make their coalition unworkable.

Mr Maassen had come under fire after questioning the veracity of a video appearing to show foreigners being attacked on the streets of Chemnitz by neo-Nazi extremists – in direct contradiction to Mrs Merkel.

He was defended by interior minister – and CSU leader – Horst Seehofer, who is now his direct boss.

However, the CSU has since hinted the decision to give him a new job could now be reversed in response to the criticism.

The telephone poll of 1,035 people, which was conducted between September 17 and 19, also indicated far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD) could expect to be the second-largest party in the German Parliament, were an election held tomorrow.

CSU leader Horst Seehofer is also widely unpopular, according to the survey (Image: GETTY)

The AfD stand on 18 percent, with the SPD on 17 percent, and the Greens on 15 percent.

Overall, the so-called grand coalition would receive 45 percent, meaning a similar alliance next time round would not be possible.

The survey also suggests Mr Seehofer’s popularity has also taken a hit, possibly as a result of recent clashes over immigration, with just 28 percent approving of the job he was doing, compared with 59 percent disapproving.

Speaking about the decision to move Mr Maassen into Mr Seehofer’s department, Christian Lindner, leader of the Free Democratic Party, which took nine percent in the poll, described the situation as a “farce”.

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German spy scandal exposes deep divisions in Merkel government

Paul Carrel — Fri, 14 Sep 2018 07:57:03 +0000

BERLIN (Reuters) – A scandal over migrants being chased through the streets has exposed a rift between Angela Merkel and Germany’s security establishment that is dividing her coalition and hindering efforts to contain the fall-out from her “open door” refugee policy.

The crisis blew up when Hans-Georg Maassen, chief of the BfV intelligence agency, said he was not convinced far-right extremists had attacked migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz last month and a video said to show the violence may be fake.

That put Maassen at odds with Merkel, who said the pictures “very clearly revealed hate” which could not be tolerated.

“For a more decisive chancellor, this would have been enough to fire him,” said Carsten Nickel at political consultancy Teneo Intelligence, adding that support for Maassen from Merkel’s conservative Bavarian allies was staying her hand.

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Now, Merkel is caught between her Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), which backs Maassen, and her other coalition partner, the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), who say he has lost credibility and must go.

The upshot is that the chancellor looks weak, her coalition is in crisis and she is less able to deal with pressing issues such as Brexit, European Union reform and trade problems with the United States.

“The migration issue will certainly continue to haunt Merkel until the end of her term,” said Nickel.

The Maassen row has its roots in Merkel’s 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders to refugees fleeing war in the Middle East. More than one million came in total.

“Maassen is not an isolated case. Maassen is part of the security community,” said Robin Alexander, author of ‘Die Getriebenen, or ‘Those Driven by Events’, an account of how Merkel and her lieutenants handled the refugee crisis.

“For this security community, autumn 2015 was a disaster – not just for Maassen, but for all of them,” he added. “There is a deep alienation of the whole security community from the chancellor, and that was not the case in Germany previously.”

FRUSTRATED SPIES

The rift opened up in October 2015, when Merkel put her chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, in charge of Germany’s response to the refugee crisis, with Emily Haber – a diplomat – acting as point person in the Interior Ministry.

That chain of command effectively shut out the security services, which couldn’t get face time with Merkel.

“That totally frustrated these people … they were horrified,” said Alexander.

In private, Maassen complained about the difficulty of keeping tabs on the refugees and assessing whether they posed a security risk.

His cause got a boost with the 2017 election, when the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) surged into parliament for the first time and Merkel had to reshuffle her government.

CSU leader Horst Seehofer, who had called Merkel’s handling of the refugee crisis a “reign of injustice”, was made interior minister. He gave Maassen political cover to push his security agenda, which he duly did.

In an interview with Reuters in January, Maassen, 55, called for a review of laws restricting the surveillance of minors to guard against the children of Islamist fighters returning to Germany as “sleeper agents” who could carry out attacks.

Maassen also clashed with other more circumspect government officials when he said Russia was the likely culprit behind cyber attacks on Germany.

SPOKE TOO SOON

Then came Chemnitz. This time, Maassen publicly questioned the authenticity of the video before his agency had finished its work on the incident.

“The bottom line is that he spoke before the agency finished its assessment,” said one source familiar with the issue.

In a Sept. 10 letter to the Interior Ministry, seen by Reuters, in which he explained his comments on Chemnitz, Maassen said he wanted to shed light on events after the state premier of Saxony, where the city is located, denied migrants had been hounded.

But the letter failed to draw a line under a scandal that has also revived questions about Maassen’s ties to the far-right AfD.

A former leader of the AfD’s youth wing, Franziska Schreiber, wrote in a book she published this year – “Inside AfD: The report of a drop-out” – that Maassen had advised ex-AfD leader Frauke Petry on how the party could avoid being put under surveillance by his agency. He has denied giving such counsel.

Fresh allegations arose on Thursday, when the BfV was forced to deny a report by public broadcaster ARD that Maassen had told an AfD lawmaker about parts of a report from his agency before it was published.

But Maassen has the backing of Seehofer, who said the intelligence chief “gave a convincing explanation of his actions” to a committee of lawmakers on Wednesday.

The SPD nonetheless called a crisis meeting of governing party leaders on Thursday.

Coalition sources said the decision by the leaders of the three ruling parties to adjourn the Thursday meeting until next Tuesday could mean they hope Maassen will voluntarily step down.

However, the situation could be complicated by a meeting of the CSU on Saturday. If it supports Seehofer’s decision to back Maassen and he does not quit, coalition leaders will be under pressure to take a decision on Tuesday.

Additional reporting by Andrea Shalal and Andreas Rinke; Editing by Giles Elgood

Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-protests-spy/german-spy-scandal-exposes-deep-divisions-in-merkel-government-idUSKCN1LU1NS

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Merkel’s Generous Refugee Policy Puts Germany at Risk

Robin Simcox — Wed, 09 Aug 2017 20:06:36 +0000

Islamist terror attacks have increased markedly in the country since it opened its doors to migrants fleeing the Syrian Civil War.

On July 28, one person was murdered and another five were injured by an Islamist wielding a knife at a supermarket in Hamburg, Germany. The sad tale had an all-too-familiar ring to it for many Germans: The perpetrator should not have been in the country. His application for asylum had been rejected and he was awaiting deportation.

This latest attack may lead the German government to revisit the wisdom of its immigration policy. But it is more likely that, having allowed in almost 2 million refugees since 2015, Chancellor Angela Merkel will simply double down.

Merkel recently reaffirmed that, despite a string of Islamist plots perpetrated by recent arrivals into the country, Germany will put no limit on the number of refugees it is willing to accept. Her stance poses a serious threat to all of Europe. Such large numbers of newcomers quickly present huge societal challenges, not to mention serious security concerns. And no European nation is more endangered by this than Germany.

It is not news that ISIS has used the Syrian refugee crisis to infiltrate Europe. In January 2015, ISIS told Buzzfeed that it was doing precisely that. And in November 2015, Iraqis posing as Syrian refugees helped slaughter 130 people on the streets of Paris.

Naturally, this did not go unnoticed by Germany’s top intelligence officials. In February 2016, Hans Georg-Maassen, head of the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, was clear that “we have repeatedly seen that terrorists . . . have slipped in camouflaged or disguised as refugees.”

Yet one person reluctant to acknowledge this publicly was Angela Merkel herself. Six months later, she told a crowd of supporters that, “Islamist terrorism of ISIL is not a phenomenon that came to us by refugees, but something we already had.”

In one regard, Merkel was right. Holger Münch, head of the Bundeskriminalamt, the country’s domestic criminal-investigation agency, has stated that Germany averted eleven attacks between 2000 and 2013. For example, in 2006, three German citizens and a German–Turkish dual national trained in Waziristan at an Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) camp. IJU, which has multiple ties to al-Qaeda, encouraged the trainees to launch attacks on airports and U.S. Army bases in Germany. Thankfully, the cell was rolled up in the fall of 2007.

So when Merkel points out that Islamism in Germany did not just appear out of thin air in 2015, she is correct. But she is also giving only a partial view of the picture.

In 2015, the top three countries of origin for people applying for asylum in the EU were Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Germany was the most popular destination for asylum seekers. Germany’s Federal Statistics Office registered almost two million new people in 2015. Unfortunately, the terrorist threat it faced increased significantly as a result. Germany was the target of eight times more Islamist plots in 2016 than in 2015. Whereas plots targeting Germany constituted only 5 percent of all plots targeting Europe in 2015, in 2016, they constituted 27 percent of such plots.

Most of these planned attacks were the work of newly arrived asylum seekers, not home-grown German radicals. Most notoriously, Anas Amri, a Tunisian whose plea for asylum was rejected but who remained in the country, killed twelve people and injured another 48 after running them over with a truck at a Christmas market in Berlin late last year. Amri had pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Months earlier, in July 2016, Riaz Khan Ahmadzai — who entered Germany after claiming to be a refugee from Afghanistan — carried out a knife-and-axe attack on civilians on a train in Wurzburg. He injured five. Less than a week later, Mohammad Daleel, an asylum seeker from Syria, carried out a suicide bombing at a music festival in Ansbach, injuring 15. ISIS directed both the Khan and Daleel attacks via messaging apps.

Germany thwarted many other planned attacks that year. For example, ISIS-trained Shaas al-Mohammad was convicted this May for, among other things, passing information to the group concerning targets to attack in Berlin, including the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. He had demonstrated a willingness to take part in any attack.

In September, German authorities arrested a 16-year-old Syrian asylum seeker. ISIS had been guiding him through the process of building a bomb. A month later, Jaber al-Bakr — a Syrian refugee in contact with ISIS who had acquired explosives — killed himself in prison, after being caught by other Syrian refugees and turned over to authorities. He had apparently been planning to target an airport in Berlin.

Compare this to Münch’s data, and you find that more attacks were planned against Germany in 2016 alone than during the entire period from 2000 to 2015. Merkel is right — Islamist terrorism was “something [Germany] already had.” But now, thanks to her policies, the country faces a lot more of it.

As is her right, Merkel clearly remains committed to a very relaxed approach to immigration. But the German people should not believe this policy is devoid of consequences.

Source: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450288/angela-merkel-refugee-policy-threatens-german-security-islamist-terrorism

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