CHEMNITZ: Tens of thousands of people thronged an anti-racism concert on Monday to protest against xenophobic mobs that ran rampage in the city of Chemnitz, as Chancellor Angela Merkel urged Germans to stand up against the far right’s message of hate and division.

Chemnitz, in former communist Saxony state, was flung into the spotlight as far-right protesters went after foreign-looking people in violent demonstrations last week against the fatal stabbing of a man, allegedly by an Iraqi.

After a weekend of protests in which right-wing extremists vastly outnumbered counter-protesters, a huge crowd estimated by city authorities as 50,000 people massed by early evening at the Chemnitz free concert on Monday.

Earlier on Monday, Merkel had urged Germans to mobilise against hate. Merkel’s spokesman Steffen Seibert said it was understandable that crimes like the knife attack in Chemnitz would provoke sadness and concern among the population.

But marches by “viole­n­ce-prone right-wing extremists and neo-Nazis have nothing in the least to do with mourning for a person or with concern for a city’s cohesion”, he said.

“These people who march and are prone to violence — some have also shamelessly shown their closeness to Nazism — they stand neither for Chemnitz nor for Saxony overall, nor are they ‘the people’,” said Seibert, referring to a popular “We are the people” chant used by far-right protesters. “We must make that clear to them,” be it through political or legal means, he said.

“Every citizen can also raise his or her voice to clearly show them their attitude against hate, against the attempt to divide this country.”

Organisers were expecting more than 20,000 in Chemnitz, but that had been far exceeded by early evening, with police saying that 5,000 people have arrived for the concert by trains from Leipzig alone, Saxony’s biggest city.

“It’s not about a fight pitting left against right, but everyone with normal decency — regardless of their political stripe — standing up against the far-right mob,” said Campino, the lead singer of punk band Die Toten Hosen. “And it is very important to stop this conduct while it is a snowball and before it becomes an avalanche,” he added.

A “window demo” call has also gone out on social media for those who cannot make it to Chemnitz to hang a colourful poster on the window or balcony to show their support for the anti-racist cause.

‘Afghan’ jailed for knife murder in Germany

A German court on Monday jailed a failed asylum-seeker who claims to be from Afghanistan for stabbing his 15-year-old ex-girlfriend to death, in a case the far-right has seized upon in its campaign against migrants.

The defendant, identified only as Abdul D., received a jail term of eight and a half years from the juvenile court in the western town of Landau.

Abdul D. had admitted to the court to stabbing the girl at a drugstore in the town of Kandel on Dec 27. Prosecutors believe he acted out of jealousy after the girl broke up with him.

Besides his nationality, doubts have been raised about his age, which he said was 15 at the time of the crime. An expert had estimated his age as between 17 and a half and 20 but, given the uncertainty, the proceedings were held behind closed doors and under juvenile penal rules.

Abdul D. arrived in Germany in April 2016 and his request for asylum was rejected in February 2017 although he was not immediately deported.

The case is one in a string of high-profile crimes allegedly committed by asylum seekers that have stoked popular anger against the new arrivals and put pressure on Chan­cellor Angela Merkel over her liberal refugee policy.

Published in Dawn, September 4th, 2018