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BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Wednesday rejected a conservative ally who downplayed violence at far-right demonstrations last week and said footage of the event showed that innocent people were persecuted.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel attends a press conference in Berlin, Germany on September 5, 2018. REUTERS / Michele Tantussi
Germany has been shaken by the most violent right-wing protests of recent decades after the deadly stab of a German in Chemnitz, in the state of Saxony, on August 26, for which two immigrants were arrested.
The government of Saxony, in particular, has accused of ignoring the problem of far-right radicalism for years and conservative Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer on Wednesday discussed the controversy by refusing to hunt down migrants.
"There was no crowd, there was no hunt for people, there was no pogrom in this city," he said at the time. assembly of the state.
Asked about the comments at a press conference with the Czech Prime Minister, Merkel disagreed with her fellow member of the Christian Democratic Union in these terms:
"We saw pictures that very clearly revealed the hatred and … the persecution of innocent people. You have to get away from that. That's all there is to say.
Ms. Merkel criticized the fact that she did not visit the scene of the protests, where skinheads threw fireworks and bottles, chased the migrants and made the Nazi salute illegal, but his spokesman said that She would go to Chemnitz. No date is set.
With her open door policy for migrants, accused of the rise of the far-right party AfD and movements like the anti-Muslim group PEGIDA, Merkel is keen to avoid the major political consequences of the protests.
Next month, his conservative allies in the state of Bavaria will face a daunting challenge from the AfD in a vote and, subsequently, a state election in Hesse.
The far-right AfD, which has won polls since last week's protests and even overtaken the Social Democrats in an investigation, blasted Merkel and his spokesman for their reactions to the protests.
Joerg Meuthen, senior member of the AfD, said that Kretschmer had belatedly established the facts, but that Merkel and his spokesman had undermined the image of Saxony and Germany to l & # 39; abroad.
When asked about this at a government press conference, a spokeswoman said, "It remains that the video recordings we have seen show how people of foreign origin have been pursued and threatened."
Additional report by Andrea Shalal; Report by Madeline Chambers
