Germany to tighten knife laws as anger grows at mass stabbing
The German government has unveiled a security package that includes knife bans and stricter asylum measures following the fatal stabbing of three individuals at a street festival in Solingen. The incident has rocked Germany and ignited a heated debate over asylum laws, particularly as the primary suspect, a 26-year-old Syrian refugee, is facing deportation and is under investigation for murder and possible ties to the militant group Islamic State (IS).
The announcement of these new measures comes just three days before elections in two eastern German states, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is currently leading in the polls. In Thuringia, the AfD is projected to come in first, ahead of the conservative CDU, while in Saxony, opinion polls show the two parties are neck and neck.
Despite the AfD’s strong polling, it faces a slim chance of gaining power in either state due to a lack of support from other groups to form a majority. The elections could, however, be a blow to the three parties currently governing at the federal level, as they are all polling below 10%.
On Thursday, ministers from the Social Democrats, Greens, and Liberal FDP held a joint press conference to present what they described as extensive new measures.
Knives are to be banned at most public events including markets and sports as well as on public transport, and there will be a blanket ban on flick knives.
Foreigners ordered to leave the country will have to be deported more quickly and efficiently, they say. Anyone facing a jail term for knife crime would face fast deportation.
A task force for the prevention of Islamism is being proposed and biometric facial recognition will be used to help identify suspects. IS said it was behind the Solingen attack and a day afterwards released a video purportedly showing the suspect in a mask.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said asylum seekers who had already registered in another European Union country would lose their rights to welfare benefits.
Ms Faeser insisted that nobody would be left hungry or sleeping on the streets, as the other EU country would be responsible for paying their benefits.
The suspect in custody in the western city of Düsseldorf had sought asylum in Germany but he was turned down because he had first entered the EU in Bulgaria.
Under the EU’s Dublin Regulation, an application for asylum has to be made in the country of arrival.
The Syrian should have been deported to Bulgaria last year but German reports suggest that the attempt failed because officials had failed to find him.
During a visit to Solingen this week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the government would do all it could to ensure “those who cannot and must not stay here in Germany are repatriated and deported”.
His government had already announced plans earlier this year to resume deportations to Afghanistan and Syria in the wake of a deadly attack by a 25-year-old Afghan man in Mannheim.
The leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, who met the chancellor this week, called for a halt on allowing refugees from Afghanistan and Syria to enter Germany, but that was rejected by Mr Scholz.
All the planned measures will have to go before parliament before they come into force.
1 comment
If the German government are able to enact the knife law, it will be able to stop premature dead in the future. That’s, those that would have been killed by knife.