BERLIN: German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Thursday the government would toughen knife controls and curb benefits for some illegal migrants in response to incidents of stabbings.

Three people were killed and eight others injured at a festival in the western city of Solingen on Friday, in an attack allegedly carried out by a 26-year-old Syrian man with links to the militant Islamic State group.

The knife attack has inflamed the debate over immigration in Germany and put pressure on the government to act ahead of key regional elections on Sunday. The stabbing has “shocked us deeply”, Faeser said at a press conference on Thursday alongside Justice Minister Marco Buschmann.

The threats highlighted by the attack demanded a packet of “tough measures”, including tightening weapons controls and strengthening security services, Faeser said. Carrying knives at festivals, like the one in Solingen, as well as “sports events and other similar public events” will be banned, Faeser said.

Leader of banned Islamic Centre to be deported

There will be reasoned exceptions to the ban, including for those working in hospitality and performers, she added. Knives will also be banned on long-distance trains, the minister said, with police given more powers to search members of the public.

The alleged Solingen attacker, named as Issa Al H, initially evaded police before being taken into custody on Saturday. The suspect was meant to have been deported to Bulgaria, where he had first arrived in the European Union, but the operation failed after he went missing.

The seeming ease with which the 26-year-old avoided efforts to remove him from the country has piled pressure on the government to crack down on illegal migration.

“The entire process… must be examined, must be made more effective, so that we can deport people more quickly,” Justice Minister Buschmann said. Cases where an individual cannot be removed because authorities are unable to locate them “must end”, Buschmann said.

In future, Germany will refuse benefits payments to migrants set to be deported to other countries in the European Union, Faeser said. “For cases who have to pursue their asylum procedure in other member states and who have already had a transfer request approved in the member state in question, the receipt of benefits should be excluded,” Faeser said.

Banned Islamic Centre

Germany is planning to deport the leader of an Islamic centre it banned in July over alleged links to extremist groups, an interior ministry spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Investigators swooped on the Hamburg Islamic Centre five weeks ago after concluding it was an “Islamist extremist organisation” with links to Iran and Hezbollah group.

Mohammad Mofatteh, 57, the former director of the centre, has been ordered to leave Germany within 14 days and faces deportation if he does not comply, the spokeswoman said. He will not be allowed to re-enter Germany and could face up to three years in prison if he does.

Andy Grote, interior minister for the state of Hamburg, said Mofatteh’s deportation was “the next logical step” against the Hamburg Islamic Centre.

Published in Dawn, August 30th, 2024