Germany’s federal government has agreed on new measures to expedite deportation of criminal asylum seekers after far-right riots in Leipzig ended in more than 200 detentions.
Two weeks after multiple attacks on women on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, the number of criminal complaints for theft, physical and sexual assault has risen to 653.
Germany's Bild newspaper reprinted a police protocol of Cologne's night of chaos in yesterday's edition. Just 114 of the complaints of attacks fitted on a full broadsheet page.
At 11.15pm alone, five separate complaints were registered of women being “pressed to the ground with pockets emptied” or being “harried by 20 people and indecently touched”.
Suspects identified
Police in Cologne say they are investigating 51 individuals, 25 from Morocco and Algeria, with 12 suspects identified and five in custody.
Criminal police say the perpetrators organised via social media, but say there is no indication of large-scale co-ordination of the attacks.
After a series of vigilante attacks against foreign nationals in Cologne, police in Leipzig to the east battled and detained 211 people on Monday evening after a riot on the fringes of a march by Legida, Leipzig allies of Dresden’s far-right Pegida.
Far-right hooligans set cars and bins on fire in Leipzig’s alternative Connewitz neighbourhood and smashed windows, including those of a kebab shop.
Earlier, in another part of Leipzig, Legida supporters booed loudly when speakers accused Berlin of destroying their homeland by admitting 1.1 million asylum seekers last year.
Sex jihad
“Nothing is the same since New Year’s Eve,” said one speaker, Tatjana Festerling. She said the New Year’s Eve attacks were a “sex jihad” when “Muslim refugees started their wholesale terror attack against German women, against blonde, white women”.
Marchers chanted slogans such as “Resistance!” and “Deport them!”. Some carried signs reading “Refugees not welcome!”, showing a silhouetted woman being chased by three men armed with knives.
Cologne shockwaves continue to reverberate in Berlin, where chancellor Angela Merkel is on the defensive after last year’s liberal immigration policy.
