Germany
far-right party AfD holds march after Christmas market attack
Anti-extremist
initiative 'Don't Give Hate a Chance' was also gathering nearby in Magdeburg,
the site of Friday's carnage.
Le Monde
with AFP
Published
yesterday at 12:14 am (Paris), updated yesterday at 9:52 am
Germany's
far-right AfD party held what it called a "memorial" rally on Monday,
December 23, for victims of last week's car-ramming attack on a Christmas
market that has newly inflamed debate on migrant and security policy.
Meanwhile, an anti-extremist initiative called "Don't Give Hate a
Chance" was gathering nearby in the eastern city of Magdeburg, which was
mourning five dead and more than 200 injured in Friday's carnage.
"Terror
has arrived in our city," said AfD leader Jan Wenzel Schmidt in the German
state of Saxony-Anhalt, condemning what he labeled the "monstrous
political failure" that led up to the attack, for which a Saudi man was
arrested. "We must close the borders," Schmidt told hundreds of
supporters of the anti-immigration party. "We can no longer take in madmen
from all over the world." The party's co-leader Alice Weidel demanded
"change so we can finally live in security again," as people in the
crowd chanted: "Deport, deport, deport!"
The anti-AfD
initiative said in a message that "we are all shocked and angry to see
that people want to exploit this cruel act for their own political ends"
and called for "tolerance and humanity."
As Germany
mourned the dead – four women and a nine-year-old boy – Chancellor Olaf
Scholz's government faced angry questions on possible errors and missed
warnings about the Saudi suspect arrested at the scene of Friday's attack.
Those
concerns were fuelled by news that Saudi Arabia had warned Germany about its
citizen Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, 50, who came to Germany in 2006 and was granted
refugee status 10 years later. Riyadh had warned Berlin "many times"
that the psychiatrist and activist "could be dangerous", a source
close to the Saudi government told Agence France-Presse (AFP), adding that
"there was (an extradition) request."
Puzzled by
motive
Police were
still puzzling over why the driver smashed a rented SUV at high speed through
the crowd of revelers, bringing death and chaos to the festive event.
Abdulmohsen had in his many online posts voiced strongly anti-Islam views,
anger at German authorities and support for far-right conspiracy narratives on
the "Islamisation" of Europe.
Die Welt
daily, citing unnamed security sources, reported that Abdulmohsen had been
treated for a mental illness in the past, but this has not been confirmed by
authorities. The Saudi suspect has been remanded in custody in a top-security
facility on five counts of murder and 205 of attempted murder, prosecutors
said, but not so far on terrorism-related charges.
Even as the
attacker's motive remained unclear, the attack has moved the flashpoint issues
of security and immigration back to the center of German politics ahead of the
February 23 elections. The mass-circulation daily Bild wrote that
"although the background to the terrible attack in Magdeburg has not yet
been clarified, it is already clear: there will be a 'before' and an 'after' in
this election campaign."
'Weakest
link'
Interior
Minister Nancy Faeser has vowed that "no stone will be left unturned"
in shedding light on what information had been available on Abdulmohsen in the
past. She stressed that the attacker did "not fit any previous
pattern" because "he acted like an Islamist terrorist although
ideologically he was clearly an enemy of Islam." The Association of German
Criminal Police Officers warned that "it is still too early to draw hasty
conclusions or even to formulate political demands."
German
Christmas markets – among the country's most iconic and beloved festive events
– have been specially secured since a jihadist attacker rammed a truck through
one in Berlin in 2016, killing 13 people.
Police have
also stepped up weapons checks following several deadly knife attacks,
including one that killed three people and wounded eight at a summer festival
in the western city of Solingen. The suspect of that attack, a 26-year-old
Syrian man with suspected links to the Islamic State group, had evaded attempts
to deport him.
The
Magdeburg market too had been secured with police and heavy barricades, but the
attacker managed to exploit a five-metre gap when he steered his rented BMW
sport utility vehicle into the site and then raced into the unsuspecting crowd.
"A
security concept is only as strong as its weakest link," counterterrorism
expert Peter Neumann told news weekly Der Spiegel. "If one entry point
remains unprotected, all the other concrete bollards are of no use."
Le Monde
with AFP
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