{"id":22130,"date":"2018-11-16T19:23:19","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T19:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22130"},"modified":"2018-11-16T19:23:19","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T19:23:19","slug":"merkel-visits-german-city-at-epicentre-of-far-right-resurgence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22130","title":{"rendered":"Merkel visits German city at epicentre of far-right resurgence"},"content":{"rendered":"
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel<\/a> has made good on a long-promised visit to Chemnitz, an eastern city that has experienced violent far-right rallies and xenophobic riots.<\/p>\n

The demonstrations<\/a>\u00a0in August\u00a0occurred after a man, identified as Daniel H by local media, reportedly of Cuban origin, died after being stabbed during an argument.<\/p>\n

Two men, of Syrian and Iraqi origin and presumed to be asylum seekers<\/a>, were arrested by local police in relation to the stabbing.<\/p>\n

In Chemnitz, Merkel on Friday spoke at a town hall-style meeting with about 130 readers of a local newspaper, taking “pointed” questions about the situation in Germany<\/a>, Al Jazeera’s Dominic Kane, reporting from the city, said.<\/p>\n

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Riot policemen protected far-right demonstrators against attacks from anti-fascists in Chemnitz [Matthias Rietschel\/Reuters]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

“She has been saying, ‘we’re aware of the problem \u2026 we want to know what people’s concerns are,'” Kane added.<\/p>\n

The arrest of the two men played into a nationwide debate on Merkel’s immigration<\/a> policies, which have come under increased pressure in recent years, both from the electorate and members of the chancellor’s governing coalition.<\/p>\n

The far-right<\/a>, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany<\/a> party is now the main opposition party in Germany, after coming third in last year’s general election<\/p>\n

Attendees at Friday’s meeting voiced concerns over the resurgence of far-right violence – aside from the far-right clashes, a Jewish restaurant and a Persian eatery were also targeted.<\/p>\n

But one attendee also said they felt like “second-class citizens” as residents of former East Germany, which was a member of the Soviet bloc from the 1940s until the Berlin Wall fell in 1989.<\/p>\n

Western Germany holds much of the country’s wealth, according to a 2015 study\u00a0by the Berlin Institute for Population and Development.<\/p>\n

Of the 500 richest Germans, only 21 call the east home. Of the 20 most prosperous cities, only one – Jena, is found in the east.<\/p>\n

Kane said that Merkel, who is from the east, told the crowd in Chemnitz that said she understands their economic concerns but added that “violence is not the answer”.<\/p>\n

Merkel, who took office in 2005,\u00a0<\/span>announced<\/a>\u00a0in late October she would step down as the head of the Christian Democratic Union and would not run for chancellor in the next federal elections.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made good on a long-promised visit to Chemnitz, an eastern city that has experienced violent far-right rallies and xenophobic riots. The demonstrations\u00a0in August\u00a0occurred after a man, identified as Daniel H by local media, reportedly of Cuban origin, died after being stabbed during an argument. Two men, of Syrian and Iraqi…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22130\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}