Right-wing supporters protest after a German man was stabbed last weekend in Chemnitz, Germany, August 27, 2018
Around a thousand far-right demonstrators rallied in the eastern German city of Chemnitz Thursday after days of violent protests.
The protesters shouted slogans against Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy for refugees, demanded immediate deportation of illegal migrants and attacked the media, chanting the Nazi-era term “Luegenpresse" (lying press).
They also carried banners bearing the messages “We are the people”, “For security and order” and “The people are rising up”.
Unrest in the city begun Sunday following reports on social media that attributed the killing of a 35-year-old German citizen to two migrants from Syria and Iraq.
Far-right extremists took to the streets, and some of them randomly attacked foreign-looking people, including an Afghan, a Syrian and a Bulgarian man, according to police.
The far-right group Pro Chemnitz, which organized Thursday’s demonstration, has announced that they will continue their protests with another major rally scheduled for Saturday.
Several leftist groups also announced that they would hold a counter protest on the same day in Chemnitz.
Germany will not tolerate "vigilante justice", Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Monday, after hundreds of far-right supporters protested in the eastern city of Chemnitz against the death of a man involved in a multi-ethnic dispute.Police said around 800 demonstrators had gathered in Chemnitz on Sunday, hours after a 35-year-old man died following a dispute between several people of "different nationalities". Some of the protesters had thrown bottles at police officers.The demonstration followed calls on social media by far-right groups for protests over the man's death. Two other men were injured in the incident and police have detained two suspects, aged 22 and 23.An amateur video posted on social media and aired by national broadcasters showed skinheads chasing a young Arab-looking man at a major intersection in the city. Other clips showed hundreds of demonstrators shouting "We are the people!" - a slogan used by far-right supporters.A police spokeswoman could not comment on the nationalities of those involved or on media reports that the protesters were far-right supporters who had hounded migrants. The cause of the man's death was also not immediately clear.Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert condemned Sunday's impromptu demonstration."We don't tolerate such unlawful assemblies and the hounding of people who look different or have different origins and attempts to spread hatred on the streets," he told a regular news briefing."That has no place in our cities and we, as the German government, condemn it in the strongest terms," he said. "Our basic message for Chemnitz and beyond is that there is no place in Germany for vigilante justice, for groups that want to spread hatred on the streets, for intolerance and for extremism."Far-rightMerkel's decision in 2015 to let in about a million migrants, many fleeing wars in the Middle East, has fueled support for far-right groups such as PEGIDA and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the main opposition party in parliament.Tweeting about Sunday's incident, AfD politician Markus Frohnmaier said: "If the state is no longer to protect citizens then people take to the streets and protect themselves. It's as simple as that!"Martina Renner, a lawmaker for the radical Left party, accused the far-right of trying to exploit a murder for its own political ends. "A terrible murder, the background to which is still unclear, is being instrumentalised in the most repugnant way for racist riots in Chemnitz," she tweeted.The violence in Chemnitz is likely to put further pressure on Merkel's conservatives, who last week faced accusations of ignoring the rise of far-right groups in the eastern state of Saxony, where Chemnitz lies.Police in Chemnitz are preparing for further demonstrations. They were expected to issue a further statement about Sunday's incident later on Monday. Germany's public debt could fall below EU ceiling this yearGerman foreign minister to visit Turkey next monthGerman military turns to under 18s to boost recruitment
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed that poor treatment of migrants in Germany should be discussed, and touched on the debate sparked by German-Turkish footballer Mesut Özil with his decision to quit Germany’s national team due to the discrimination and racist propaganda he faced recently.“I have a very clear stance on the matter. There may be differing views as to whether the photograph that was taken was right or wrong,” Merkel said.Since May, Özil was criticized by German politicians and media outlets for meeting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and taking a photograph with him in London ahead of elections in Turkey.Özil defended his meeting, and stressed that a picture with the Turkish president was not about politics, but respect to his family’s country. “It was about me respecting the highest office of my family’s country. I am German when we win, but I am an immigrant when we lose,” Özil had said in a social media post.“Be it Özil or someone else,” if migrants in Germany believe that they are treated poorly in German society, this “must be taken seriously and discussed,” Merkel stated.Özil also accused far-right politicians and media for using his picture with Erdoğan “as an opportunity to express their previously hidden racist tendencies” ahead of June's football World Cup.Video: Germany haunted by racist historyGermany’s President Frank-Walter Steinmeier echoed Merkel’s sentiments, and called on all citizens to stand up against racism and discrimination on Wednesday.“There are no first and second class citizens. A permanent suspicion of migrants, no matter how long they’ve lived in Germany, isn’t only hurtful for the individual. It’s a cause of shame for our country,” he said to a small group of Turkish and German citizens who were invited to the presidential palace to voice their views on migration, integration, discrimination and racism in everyday life.Some 19.3 million people out of 81.7 million in Germany are immigrants or their descendants, according to the federal statistics office.People of Turkish origin continue to be the largest immigrant group in Germany with an estimated population of 2.8 million, followed by 2.1 million Poles and 1.4 million Russians.Germany says Turkey’s stability important for Europe
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