Anti-migrant incidents in Saxony condemned
February 21, 2016
German Federal Justice Minister Heiko Maas on Sunday condemned two incidents in Saxony involving anti-migrant mobs as "disgusting and revolting behavior" by those who "shamelessly applaud when houses burn and scare refugees to death."
"Verbal radicalism is a prelude to physical violence," Maas added, noting that Saxony had featured the most frequently as the scene of criminal acts against foreigners since last year when Germany let in nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers.
"Racists are pathetic lawbreakers, a disgrace for our country. Shame on you," wrote deputy foreign minister Michael Roth on Twitter.
Two incidents
On Thursday evening, police dragged several terrified refugees out of a bus after a group of demonstrators tried to block their arrival in Clausnitz, a town in Saxony's Erz Mountains.
On Saturday night, drunken onlookers had shown "unabashed delight" and hindered firefighters, according to police, as a blaze consumed the attic of a former hotel intended to be adapted as a refugee hostel in Bautzen. Police later said accelerant was found. No one was physically hurt.
The incidents precede regional elections on March 13 in three German states, including Saxony's neighbor, Saxony-Anhalt.
Actions of 'criminals'
Saxony's premier Slanislav Tillich on Sunday described the perpetrators in Clausnitz and Bautzen as "criminals" and said their actions were both "appalling and shocking"
Tillich of Saxony's Sorbian minority has his electorate in Bautzen, a town in northeastern Saxony, and currently chairs the Bundesrat or Federal Council representing Germany's 16 regional states.
German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere, who also has his federal electorate in Saxony, told the German news agency DPA that the threshold of decency and law had "clearly" been crossed in both incidents.
'Mob applauds' while hostel burns
"I am disgusted that in Germany it has again come to scenes where a mob applauds while a refugee hostel burns," said Aydan Özoguz, the federal government's integration commissioner.
Özoguz also condemned police handling of Thursday's refugee arrival in Clausnitz, saying Saxony's police force had repeatedly failed to show itself to be a convincing upholder of civil order.
It was the police's job to protect refugees from "this disgusting mob," said Thomas Oppermann, who, like Özuguz, is a Social Democrat (SPD) member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government. He heads the SPD's parliamentary grouping.
Police unions defend colleagues' actions
Germany's two main police trade unions defended police actions in Clausnitz, saying officers had been obliged to act in a tense situation.
Saxony's interior minister Markus Ulbig, like Tillich, a member of Merkel's Christian Democrats, said police had intervened appropriately in Clausnitz.
'Pogrom-like atmosphere'
Caren Lay, a trained sociologist, a former Saxony parliamentarian and now a deputy leader of Germany's opposition Left party, said a "pogrom-like atmosphere" prevailed against refugees in Saxony.
Armin Laschet, a senior Christian Democrat and Merkel ally in Germany's most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, said the incidents in Bautzen and Clausnitz exhibited the failure of "some Germans" to remain integrated in Germany's "leading culture" based on humanity, respect and decency.
Saxony 'failed' state?
SPD federal interior affairs spokesman Burkhard Lischka told "die Welt" newspaper that Saxony had to watch out that its outbreaks of far-right extremism did not turn it into a "failed state."
Green's federal parliamentarian Monika Lazar told "die Welt" that Saxony's conservative-led government had since the 1990s dramatically underestimated the situation.
That was the reason why the "seeds" of the anti-foreigner movement Pegida had sprouted since 2014 in Dresden, Lazar said.
Some 70 people, including families with children, demonstrated in Bautzen on Sunday, displaying slogans such as "intellectual arsonists are also criminals." The rally was organized by a civic group calling itself "Bautzen stays colorful."
ipj/jm (AP, dpa, AFP)