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CRIME

Merkel to visit Chemnitz after murder, growing unrest

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will visit the eastern city Chemnitz, scene in recent weeks of racist outbursts, following the stabbing of a German allegedly by refugees.

Merkel to visit Chemnitz after murder, growing unrest
The right-wing group Pro Chemnitz gathered in the city on Thursday. Photo: DPA

The veteran leader had “gladly accepted” an invitation from Chemnitz mayor Barbara Ludwig when the two spoke by phone, a spokesperson for city hall told AFP.

Merkel will most likely lead a citizens' dialogue on immigration in October, reported Spiegel Online on Wednesday.

The Saxon city of around 240,000 people has seen a few federal politicians show their faces since a 35-year-old local man was stabbed to death, allegedly by asylum seekers, followed by a surge of violent right-wing protests.

Last Friday, Families Minister Franziska Giffey visited the city both to visit the memorial site of the victim and speak out against the unrest. She has called for a law to improve education on democracy among younger people.

SEE ALSO: Families Minister Franziska Giffey becomes first government official to visit site of Chemnitz stabbing

A third suspect

Two suspects, an Iraqi and a Syrian, are in police custody following the killing, while a city court on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant for a third man, another Iraqi.

Far-right groups and thousands of local citizens took to the streets in the days after the stabbing, with a number of participants attacking people who looked foreign, and showing the illegal Nazi salute.

The Chemnitz knife attack is the latest in a series of violent crimes by
refugees that have garnered massive media attention across the world and stoked anger at Merkel's decision not to close Germany's borders to more than one million migrants and refugees who arrived since 2015.

Such spotlighted cases helped propel far-right anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD) into parliament last year and made it a leading political force in formerly communist eastern states like Saxony.

The announcement of Merkel's visit came one day after 65,000 people turned out at a rock concert in Chemnitz against racism that went off without incident.

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ANTI-SEMITISM

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

Anti-Semitic acts rose sharply in Germany last year, especially after war broke out between Israel and Hamas in Gaza in October, according to new figures released on Tuesday.

Germany sees sharp rise in anti-Semitic acts

The Federal Association of Research and Information Centres on Anti-Semitism (RIAS) documented 4,782 anti-Semitic “incidents” in 2023 – an increase of more than 80 per cent on the previous year.

More than half of the incidents – which included threats, physical attacks and vandalism – were registered after Palestinian militant group Hamas’s unprecedented October 7th attack on Israel, RIAS said.

Germany’s domestic intelligence agency last week also published figures showing a new record in anti-Semitic crimes in 2023.

A total of 5,164 crimes were recorded during the year, the agency said, compared with 2,641 in 2022.

Anti-Semitic crimes with a “religious-ideological motivation” jumped to 492 from just 33 the previous year, with the vast majority committed after October 7.

Felix Klein, the government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism, said the RIAS figures were “absolutely catastrophic”.

The Hamas attack had acted as an “accelerant” for anti-Semitism in Germany, he told a press conference in Berlin.

“Jewish life in Germany is under greater threat than it has ever been since the Federal Republic of Germany was founded,” he said.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,600 people, also mostly civilians, Gaza’s health ministry said.

Islamophobic incidents also increased dramatically in Germany last year, according to a separate report published on Monday.

The CLAIM alliance against Islamophobia said it had registered 1,926 attacks on Muslims in 2023, compared with just under 900 in 2023.

These included verbal abuse, discrimination, physical violence and damage to property.

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