Retrieved from Deutsche Welle

Protest in Chemnitz turns violent, immigration still at the center of political debate in Germany

Aadit Tambe
Sep 3, 2018 · 2 min read

CHEMNITZ, Germany– Hundreds were injured in a violent protest, when several right-wing protesters flashed Nazi salutes, waved the German flag, and chased down dark-skinned people.

Unrest broke out in the Chemnitz, a town in Saxony, when about 6,000 people took part in a far right demonstration and about 1,000 in a counter-protest on Monday, Aug. 27, The New York Times reported.

The protest broke out following the death of a German man, who was allegedly stabbed by two asylum seekers from Syria and Iraq, the BBC reported. The alleged stabbing took place on Sunday, at a street festival, which caused the festival to be called off immediately.

The two suspects are now in police custody.

The police were vastly outnumbered, and did not anticipate such a large mobilization of far-right supporters.

The Zeit reported that there were several protesters who had traveled to Saxony from the neighboring states of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Steffen Seibert, spokesperson for Chancellor Angela Merkel, condemned the violence. “We don’t accept such riots in our cities…,” he said.

Minister Horst Seehofer of the Bundesministerium des Innern (the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community) tweeted, “the impact on the population is understandable, but that does not justify violent riots of the call to do so.”

The protest is said to have been coordinated mainly by the right-wing populist part, Alternativ Für Deutschland (AfD). They encouraged Germans to come out and speak up against Merkel’s immigration policies.

Spokesperson for AfD, Udo HemmelgarnAfD tweeted, “the problem is not the peaceful protest of the courages people of Chemnitz against the criminal Muslim migrants. The problem is the rape and murders by illegal immigrants, and their rising power.”

Since Merkel let in about 900,000 asylum-seekers and war-feeling refugees in 2016, immigration has been at the center of controversy and political debate.

Merkel’s party, the Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands (CDU), faced a major backlash from voters in the 2017 general election, when, for the first time, a right-wing political party, AfD, entered the parliament, the BBC reported.

This rise in right-wing nationalism in Germany shows a shift in social and political attitudes, which has worried many in a country haunted by the memory of Nazism.

Aadit Tambe

Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa ‘20

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