BERLIN: Germany’s government on Wednesday launched new legislation to ease the deportation of foreigners who publicly approve of terrorist acts.
Under the law, a single comment on social media could provide grounds for kicking people out.
The measure approved by the Cabinet was pledged by Chancellor Olaf Scholz following a knife attack last month on members of a group that describes itself as opposing “political Islam,” an assault that left a police officer dead. It comes as Scholz’s government faces broader pressure to curb migration.
The Interior Ministry said that the law on residence will be changed so that approving or promoting “a single terrorist crime” is grounds for a “particularly serious interest in expulsion.” That means that in future a single comment that “glorifies and endorses a terrorist crime on social media” could constitute a reason for expulsion.
Anyone who publicly approves of an offense “in a manner which is suited to causing a disturbance of the public peace” could also be expelled, and a conviction would not be required. Liking a social media post would not be sufficient grounds for deportation, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said.
Faeser said that Hamas’ acts during its Oct. 7 attack on Israel have been “celebrated in a repugnant way” on social media in Germany, and the attack in Mannheim “also was glorified on the net by many in the most appalling way.”
“Such brutalization online stokes a climate of violence that can drive extremists to new acts of violence,” Faeser added. “So it’s very clear to me that Islamist agitators who mentally live in the Stone Age have no place in our country. Anyone who has no German passport and glorifies terrorist acts here must, wherever possible, be expelled and deported.”
She said she was confident that lawmakers will approve the change soon, and that she didn’t see it falling foul of freedom of speech laws.
The government faces ongoing pressure to reduce the number of migrants coming to and staying in Germany. Earlier this year, lawmakers approved legislation that is intended to ease deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers.
At the same time, Scholz’s socially liberal administration is easing the rules on gaining citizenship and ending restrictions on holding dual citizenship. It says the plan will bolster the integration of immigrants and help attract skilled workers, while opposition conservatives have argued that it cheapens German citizenship.
Faeser defended the new naturalization law, which takes effect on Thursday.
The legislation stipulates that people being naturalized must be able to support themselves and their relatives. The existing law requires that would-be citizens be committed to the “free democratic fundamental order,” and the new version specifies that antisemitic and racist acts are incompatible with that.
The government has said that issues such as antisemitism, Israel’s right to exist and Jewish life in Germany are being given a greater weight in the citizenship test applicants have to undergo.
Faeser said that, by that measure, “we have made obtaining German citizenship more difficult.”
Germany moves to ease the deportation of foreigners who glorify terrorist acts
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Germany moves to ease the deportation of foreigners who glorify terrorist acts
- Under the law, a single comment on social media could provide grounds for kicking people out
- The Interior Ministry said that the law on residence will be changed so that approving or promoting “a single terrorist crime” is grounds for a “particularly serious interest in expulsion”
Moscow claims east Ukrainian village in offensive on Toretsk
The city has been largely spared from the worst of the fighting
MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday claimed another village in eastern Ukraine as it pushes toward the city of Toretsk in a fresh local offensive in the embattled Donetsk region.
Toretsk lies north-west of the city of Gorlivka, which has been under separatist control since 2014.
The city has been largely spared from the worst of the fighting but that has changed in recent weeks after Moscow’s forces began advancing, taking Ukrainian forces by surprise.
Moscow’s defense ministry said Russian forces had “as a result of successful acts, liberated the settlement of Shumy” and gained a better “tactical position.”
Shumy lies less than 10 kilometers (six miles) east of Toretsk, a mining town which had a pre-war population of around 32,000.
Ukrainian forces have been particularly vulnerable since the end of 2023 because of major delays in European and US arms deliveries.
Belarus bolsters air defense forces along Ukrainian border
- Belarus said earlier this week it had shot down a quadcopter that had illegally crossed the border
- The Defense Ministry said it had information showing Ukraine had been moving more troops
MINSK: Belarus has deployed additional air defense forces to its border with Ukraine to protect “critical infrastructure facilities” due to increased Ukrainian drone activity in the area, a Belarusian military commander said on Saturday.
Belarus, an ally of Russia in the war with Ukraine, said earlier this week it had shot down a quadcopter that had illegally crossed the border from Ukraine “to collect information about the Belarusian border infrastructure.”
The situation in the airspace over the border remains tense, Andrei Severinchik, commander of the Belarusian Air Defense Forces, said on Saturday.
“We are ready to decisively use all available forces and means to protect our territory and the population of the Republic of Belarus from possible provocations in the airspace,” he said in a statement published on the Defense Ministry’s Telegram channel.
The Defense Ministry said earlier on Saturday it had information showing Ukraine had been moving more troops, weapons and military equipment to the northern Zhytomyr region, which borders Belarus.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Police officer wounded, ‘attacker’ killed in front of Israeli embassy in Belgrade: minister
- The officer “used a weapon in self-defense and defeated the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries”
BELGRADE: A Serbian police officer on Saturday killed a man who shot him in the neck with a crossbow in front of the Israeli embassy in Belgrade, the Serbian interior minister said.
Around 11:00 am (0900 GMT) an “unknown person, whose identity is being determined, shot a member of the gendarmerie, who was on duty securing the Israeli embassy, from a crossbow and hit him in the neck,” said Interior Minister Ivica Dacic.
The officer “used a weapon in self-defense and defeated the attacker, who died as a result of his injuries,” he added in a statement.
He told reporters later that there were early indications that people suspected of being linked to the Wahhabi movement — an ultra-conservative branch of Islam that dominates in Saudi Arabia — were being connected to the attack.
Dacic said several people had been arrested for “prevention reasons” and that overall security had been stepped up in Belgrade.
“There is no doubt that this is a terrorist act directed against the Serbian state and a member of the gendarmerie,” he said.
The wounded officer was undergoing surgery in hospital, he added, and special prosecutors had taken over the case.
Clashes, arrests mark start of German far-right AfD congress
- Around 600 AfD delegates began a two-day meeting with authorities expecting up to 80,000 people to join demonstrations
- AfD notched up its best EU election result since its creation in 2013, winning 16% of the vote to take second place
ESSEN, Germany: Clashes between hooded demonstrators and police on Saturday marked the start of a party congress of Germany’s far-right AfD, weeks after it scored record EU election results despite multiple scandals.
About 1,000 police deployed in the western city of Essen as around 600 delegates began a two-day meeting with authorities expecting up to 80,000 people to join demonstrations.
“Several disruptive violent actions occurred in the Ruettenscheld quarter. Demonstrators, some of them hooded, attacked security forces. Several arrests were made,” the police of North Westphalia, where Essen is located, said on X.
A top regional official had warned that “potentially violent far-left troublemakers” could be among the protesters.
“We are here and we will stay,” said AfD co-president Alice Weidel, opening the congress and drawing sustained applause.
“We have the right like all political parties — to hold a congress,” she added.
Adding to the security forces’ headache is the Euro 2024 football tournament, with the last 16 clash between hosts Germany and Denmark taking place Saturday in Dortmund — not far from Essen.
In early June the Alternative for Germany (AfD) notched up its best European Union election result since its creation in 2013, winning 16 percent of the vote to take second place.
It was behind the main conservative CDU-CSU opposition bloc but ahead of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD), which is in power at the head of a troubled three-party coalition.
Buoyed by a surge in immigration and a weak performance by Europe’s top economy, the party hit as high as 22 percent in opinion polls in January.
However their support faltered amid a welter of scandals that mainly implicated their top EU election candidate, Maximilian Krah.
“I believe that the party has learnt a lot in recent months and will be very careful when we put forward leading candidates in the future,” party co-president Weidel, who is standing for re-election, told the Politico news outlet Thursday.
Krah initially faced allegations of suspicious links to Russia and China.
He then sparked widespread anger by telling an Italian newspaper that not every member of the Nazis’ notorious SS was “automatically a criminal.”
The comments prompted the AfD’s expulsion from its far-right group, Identity and Democracy (ID), in the European Parliament, in which France’s National Rally (RN) and Italy’s League had been its partners.
While the AfD has sought to shift the blame for all its recent woes onto Krah, there were signs of problems even before.
The RN had already distanced itself from the AfD after reports emerged in January that the German party had discussed the expulsion of immigrants and “non-assimilated” citizens at a meeting with extremists.
The reports caused shock in Germany and triggered weeks of mass protests.
Following the EU polls, the AfD ejected Krah from the delegation it sends to Brussels but the ID group does not seem ready to re-admit them, leaving the party searching for new partners.
At the congress, delegates will be asked to vote on a motion proposing an end to the practice of having two party co-presidents.
Instead, there will be just one president alongside a general secretary.
If the motion is approved, then Tino Chrupalla — the party’s second co-president alongside Weidel — could lose his position, German media have reported.
He has been highly critical of Krah, meaning he could be targeted by the disgraced politician’s supporters.
Both Chrupalla and Weidel have backed introducing the post of secretary general as they believe it could help professionalize the AfD ahead of Germany’s 2025 parliamentary elections.
The congress comes ahead of three key elections in September in states that once formed part of communist East Germany, and where the AfD has been topping opinion polls.
Afghan women’s rights an internal issue, Taliban government says before UN-led talks
- Civil society representatives, including from women’s rights groups, will attend meetings with the international envoys and UN officials on Tuesday, after the official talks
KABUL: Taliban authorities said on Saturday that demands over women’s rights were “Afghanistan’s issues” to solve, ahead of United Nations-led engagement talks where the exclusion of Afghan women has sparked outcry.
The Taliban government, which has imposed restrictions on women since seizing power in 2021 that the UN has described as “gender apartheid,” will send its first delegation to the third round of talks starting in Qatar on Sunday.
Civil society representatives, including from women’s rights groups, will attend meetings with the international envoys and UN officials on Tuesday, after the official talks.
Rights groups have condemned the exclusion of Afghan women from the main meetings and the lack of human rights issues on the agenda.
The Taliban authorities “acknowledge the issues about women,” government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a news conference in Kabul on the eve of the latest talks.
“But these issues are Afghanistan’s issues,” said Mujahid, who will lead the delegation.
“We are working to find a logical path toward solutions inside Afghanistan so that, God forbid, our country doesn’t again fall into conflict and discord.”
He said the Taliban government would represent all of Afghanistan at the meetings and, given their authority, should be the only Afghans at the table.
“If Afghans participate through several channels, it means we are still scattered, our nation is still not unified,” he said.
The talks were launched by the UN in May 2023 and aim to increase international coordination on engagement with the Taliban authorities, who ousted a Western-backed government when they swept to power.
The Taliban government has not been officially recognized by any state and the international community has wrestled with its approach to Afghanistan’s new rulers, with women’s rights issues a sticking point for many countries.
Taliban authorities were not invited to the first talks in Doha last year and refused to attend the second conference, demanding that they be the sole Afghan representatives to the exclusion of invited civil society groups.
That condition has been met for the third round.
Mujahid reiterated that the Taliban government sought positive relations with all countries.
However, he added that “no major or key discussions” would take place in Doha and that the meeting was an opportunity to exchange views, particularly with Western countries.
The agenda will include combating narcotics and economic issues, key topics for authorities in the impoverished country.
“We have hurdles blocking economic development, which should be removed,” Mujahid said.
“If the economy were fine, then all other issues could be solved.”
