BERLIN, (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced growing pressure to harden her line on refugees yesterday as the first extensive police report on New Year’s Eve violence in Cologne documented rampant sexual assaults on women by gangs of young migrant men.
Cologne police said at least 11 foreigners, including Pakistanis, Guineans and Syrians, had been injured on Sunday evening in attacks by hooligans bent on revenge for the assaults in the western city.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere condemned those attacks and warned against a broader backlash against refugees following the events in Cologne, which have deepened scepticism towards Merkel’s policy of welcoming migrants.
The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party seized on the latest developments to attack the chancellor while members of her own conservative party warned that integrating the hundreds of thousands of migrants who arrived last year would fail if the influx were not stopped immediately.
“If the influx continues as it has, then integration can’t work,” said Carsten Linnemann, a lawmaker in Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU). “If we get another 800,000 or a million people arriving this year, then we won’t be able to do this,” he added, playing on Merkel’s optimistic “we can do this” mantra.
Speaking on Monday evening, Merkel said Europe was “vulnerable” because it was not yet in control of the situation as it would like to be.
In the eastern city of Leipzig, well over 2,000 anti-Muslim LEGIDA protestors took to the streets, their ranks swelled by anger over the Cologne attacks. They yelled “Merkel needs to go!” and one carried a sign featuring Merkel wearing a hijab and the words: ‘Merkel, take your Muslims with you and get lost’.
A police spokeswoman said there was a roughly equal number of counter-demonstrators.
A report from the Interior Ministry in North Rhine-Wesphalia (NRW) state, where Cologne lies, said 516 criminal complaints had been registered, 237 of which were of a sexual nature.
