• About Us
  • Who Are We
  • Work With Us
Friday, May 20, 2022
No Result
View All Result
NEWSLETTER
The Globe Post
39 °f
New York
44 ° Fri
46 ° Sat
40 ° Sun
41 ° Mon
No Result
View All Result
The Globe Post
No Result
View All Result
Home Featured

Pro-Migrant German Mayors Receive Threats Amid Fears Over Far-Right

Staff Writer by Staff Writer
06/20/19
in Featured, World
German far-right supporters demonstrate at Cologne`s train station on 9 January, 2016

Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident (Pegida) supporters in Germany. Photo: AFP

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

At least three prominent German pro-migrant mayors have received death threats, it emerged Thursday, days after police arrested a suspected far-right extremist over the assassination-style gun murder of a local politician.

“Death threats against local politicians are disgraceful attempts at intimidation,” said Foreign Minister Heiko Maas after the latest reports.

“The more disgusting the agitation, the more resolutely we must support all those who are engaged in communities,” he told national news agency DPA.

Germany has been shaken by news that the top suspect in the June 2 shooting of Kassel city local politician Walter Luebcke is an alleged neo-Nazi, believed to have been angered by an influx of refugees and migrants.

Now several other local politicians, who have been attacked or targeted in the past for welcoming asylum seekers, report that they have again been threatened.

One of them, Cologne mayor Henriette Reker, was stabbed in the neck by a far-right sympathizer in October 2015 and has been under police protection ever since.

“The mayor has received death threats,” a Cologne police spokesman told AFP.

Another mayor, Andreas Hollstein, of the small town of Altena in North Rhine-Westphalia state, on Tuesday confirmed to German news agency DPA that he had again received death threats.

He was slashed with a knife in 2017 after accepting a national award from Chancellor Angela Merkel for Altena’s work with refugees.

His attacker had criticized Hollstein for taking in refugees, it emerged during the trial.

Holger Kelch, the mayor of Cottbus, said he had received 500 hate mails and three death threats since 2017 when he called for calm in the city after it emerged the killer of a German pensioner came from Syria.

“Along with my family, I am under police protection the whole day,” Kelch, a member of Merkel’s CDU party, told Berlin newspaper BZ.

“Since then, I think about my security all the time and sometimes I am afraid.”

The world has more refugees than ever before. Nearly 71 million people were displaced in 2018 — and that number could grow, says UN @RefugeesChief Filippo Grandi, who praised German Chancellor Merkel’s refugee policy as “courageous”.

Read more ???? https://t.co/w9YjA4R9Jz pic.twitter.com/tkCY0bBSHw

— DW Politics (@dw_politics) June 19, 2019

News of the death threats comes in the wake of the Luebcke case, which prosecutors are treating as a political murder.

The 65-year-old was found on the terrace of his house in Wolfhagen near Kassel, having been shot in the head at close range.

A 45-year-old suspect was arrested last weekend, with media reporting he had previously launched a failed pipe bomb attack against a refugee shelter.

Luebcke was an outspoken defender of Merkel’s decision to welcome refugees and in 2015 drew the wrath of the far-right by telling Germans who objected that they could leave the country.

Tributes to Luebcke sparked an avalanche of negative comments and mockery on social networks, many welcoming the murder – a response that was slammed by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

Interior Minister Horst Seehofer on Tuesday called the killing an “alarm bell” for Germany and acknowledged that “right-wing extremism is a significant and serious danger for our society.”


More on the Subject 

Alarm at Far-Right Threat After Killing of German Politician

ShareTweet
Staff Writer

Staff Writer

AFP with The Globe Post

Related Posts

Volkswagen logo
Environment

German Farmer Sues Volkswagen Over CO2 Emissions

by Staff Writer
May 20, 2022
Bundesbank
Business

Germany to Enter Recession Due to Coronavirus: Bundesbank

by Staff Writer
February 21, 2022
Former Pope Benedict XVI
World

German Prosecutors Examines 42 Cases After Church Abuse Probe

by Staff Writer
January 21, 2022
Syrian colonel trial
World

Germany Convicts Syrian Ex-Colonel in ‘Historic’ Torture Trial

by Staff Writer
January 13, 2022
Anna Luehrmann
World

France, Germany ‘Agree to Disagree’ on Nuclear Power

by Staff Writer
January 7, 2022
Yazidi trial
World

Germany Gives First Verdict to Call Out ISIS ‘Genocide’ Against Yazidis

by Staff Writer
November 30, 2021
Next Post
A bamboo-based design raises family homes safely above water levels to cope with raising water levels in Bangladesh.

Climate Change to Create Up to 143Mln Additional Migrants by 2050 [Report]

US President Donald Trump inspecting border wall prototypes in San Diego.

Trump's Mass Deportation Plan: Political Spectacle or Serious Proposal?

Recommended

Volkswagen logo

German Farmer Sues Volkswagen Over CO2 Emissions

May 20, 2022
Vladimir Putin

Russia Says Economy Grew 3.5 Percent in First Quarter

May 18, 2022
Mexico missing people

Over 100,000 People Reported Missing in Mexico, Data Reveals

May 17, 2022
Shireen Abu Akleh

Jerusalem Archbishop Condemns Israeli Police Raid at Journalist’s Funeral

May 16, 2022
A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
Israel

15 European Nations Urge Israel to Reverse Plans for More Settler Homes

May 13, 2022

Opinion

A Lebanese election official stands at a polling station

New Group Threatens Lebanese Elections… and Potentially Middle East Peace

May 18, 2022
A man holding a gun

Safely Back in USA, Land of Guns and Burgers

May 2, 2022
China Muslim Uyghurs

Unfair Politicization, Corruption, and the Death of Modern Olympism

April 23, 2022
Ukraine war

The Ukrainian Refugee Crisis and the Hierarchies of Western Compassion

April 20, 2022
Chinese leader Xi Jinping

How Wrong ‘How China Can End the War in Ukraine’ Is

April 1, 2022
Ukraine children

The War for Ukraine’s Lives and Minds

March 30, 2022
Facebook Twitter

Newsletter

Do you like our reporting?
SUBSCRIBE

About Us

The Globe Post

The Globe Post is part of Globe Post Media, a U.S. digital news organization that is publishing the world's best targeted news sites.

submit oped

© 2018 The Globe Post

No Result
View All Result
  • National
  • World
  • Business
  • Interviews
  • Lifestyle
  • Democracy at Risk
    • Media Freedom
  • Opinion
    • Editorials
    • Columns
    • Book Reviews
    • Stage
  • Submit Op-ed

© 2018 The Globe Post