After Assaults in Cologne, Merkel Proposes Tougher Asylum Laws
By ALISON SMALE

COLOGNE, Germany — As Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed tougher laws regulating asylum seekers in the wake of the New Year’s Eve assaults on scores of women in Cologne, the city again bristled with violent tension on Saturday.

The scene near the square where the assaults occurred was a tableau of the doubts and perils coursing through Germany with the arrival of more than a million migrants in the past year.

In the afternoon, the police clashed with right-wing protesters opposed to Islam while leftists rallied against sexism and nationalism.

Earlier, Ms. Merkel met leaders of her Christian Democratic Union in the southwestern city of Mainz and sounded the more stringent tone she has adopted since word of the New Year’s Eve assaults spread last week.

Details remain murky, but on Friday the authorities for the first time linked asylum seekers to the wave of theft, violence and sexual assault on Dec. 31. By Saturday, the number of complaints to the police about those events had risen to 379.

Ms. Merkel seems keenly aware that the Cologne episode has awoken doubts even among those who welcome the new migrants, and on Saturday she proposed toughening expulsion laws for foreigners who commit crimes.

“The right to asylum can be lost if someone is convicted, on probation or jailed,” the chancellor said.

Under current German law, only foreigners convicted of a crime and sentenced to serve more than three years are deported, and only if their expulsion would not endanger their lives.

In Cologne, which has a population of about one million and is one of Germany’s most diverse cities, more than 2,000 police officers — equipped with water cannons, dogs and horses — were deployed Saturday to control the rival demonstrations, which the police said drew about 3,000 people. The police spent hours keeping the two sides apart, as hooded youths in both camps, many wearing masks and sunglasses, spoiled for a fight.

Tempers snapped during the rally by about 1,700 supporters of the far-right Pegida movement, which was punctuated by chants for Ms. Merkel’s ouster and contempt for the government. The movement opposes the arrival of mostly Muslim refugees and migrants fleeing war in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and North Africa.

Setting off on a protest route negotiated with the authorities, the Pegida supporters hurled bottles and firecrackers at the helmeted police officers, who then shut down the demonstration because it had turned violent. The police used water cannons and pepper spray to disperse the crowd, said a police spokeswoman, Gudrun Haustetter.

At least four police officers and one journalist were injured, Ms. Haustetter said. Supporters of Pegida, the German acronym for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West, meandered for at least an hour afterward through the train station, loudly chanting their credo and singing the Nazi-era version of Germany’s national anthem.

Left-right tensions have marked German street politics for decades, and the police prepare carefully for such protests, pledging to uphold freedom of expression even if that requires hundreds or even thousands of officers to prevent violence.

By contrast, the Cologne police and the federal police responsible for safety at the train station and its immediate surroundings were less visible on New Year’s Eve, traditionally a time for celebrations on the banks of the Rhine, not far from the station and the city’s emblematic cathedral.

In the other rally on Saturday, hundreds of women carried placards with messages like “Stop Macho Violence,” “No To Sexism, Racism, Capitalism,” or “Violence Against Women Knows No Nationalism or Religion.”

Other signs offered positive messages for Germany’s new arrivals — “Those who have fled are most heartily welcome,” said one, with a red heart drawn on it.

For all the good intentions, the jitters over the events in Cologne — and assaults on women reported in Hamburg and Stuttgart — were palpable.

Irmgard Schenk-Zittlau, 57, a city official in nearby Leverkusen, carried a message on a piece of cardboard urging Germany to preserve the rule of law. After the Cologne police failed to protect women from sexual assault, she said, she lost faith in them, even more so when they gave no clear account of events for several days. “The public has a right to know what is going on and what will be here in Germany,” Ms. Schenk-Zittlau said.

Germans who previously might have avoided one another because of political differences should pull together now, she said.

“Cologne was always open to the world, and tolerant,” Ms. Schenk-Zittlau said. “But we must get rid of this cozy attitude, whereby we all thought everything is great and regulated. Now we must really think.” Politicians should stop swapping blame, she said, adding, “In politics, society and institutions must all pull together and do something.”

Nearby, Peter Heim, a teacher at one of Cologne’s most ethnically mixed schools — pupils from 50 nations, he said, including recently arrived refugee children — held another starkly simple placard: “The dignity of a person is untouchable,” the opening sentence of Germany’s post-Nazi Constitution.

Like many other Germans in recent days, Mr. Helm and his friends wondered whether the horror over the sexual assault in Cologne would turn the country against refugees. “That is the evil thing at the moment,” said Mr. Heim, a member of a Christian peace movement Pax Christi.

A woman who addressed the Pegida crowd and was introduced simply as Christiane, a mother of four, expressed sympathy for foreign women forced to flee war, and for those assaulted on Dec. 31.

Having to fear for freedom “just doesn’t work,” she said.

But most speakers at Pegida’s hourlong gathering were more strident. “Islam is the cancer, Pegida is the cure,” shouted Tommy Robinson, who has appeared at previous Pegida rallies and was introduced as a leader of the movement in Britain.

Michael Mannheimer, another far-rightist, told the crowd, “Islam has one message, and one aim: world dominance.”

A placard near the speaker’s stage asserted: “Germany has survived war, pests and cholera. But Merkel? ...”

跨年夜事件 梅克爾：支持修法驅逐有罪難民

德國科隆跨年夜發生移民與難民集體性騷擾數百名女性事件後，女性維權、極右與左派反示威人士九日在當地遊行，表達難民問題相關辯論的不同立場。極右派人士遊行現場爆發衝突，警方以水砲和催淚瓦斯驅散暴力示威者。跨年夜事件已迫使梅克爾對難民立場作出改變，贊成修法，加快速度驅逐有罪難民。

德國總理梅克爾說，她贊成從嚴修法，將罪名確立，即使只判緩刑的難民都須驅逐出境。根據現行德國法令 ，只有判刑三年以上，且遣返後無性命之憂者，必須強制驅逐出境。

由於梅克爾採取開放政策，去年約有一百一十萬名難民與移民湧入德國，隨著難民增加，德國政府遭受的指責也與日俱增。跨年集體性騷擾事件使梅克爾備受抨擊，也讓梅克爾意識到，科隆事件已導致原本支持難民政策的德國人開始動搖。梅克爾所屬執政黨基民黨副主席波菲爾表示：「科隆的事件已經改變一切。人們已經開始懷疑。」

經過十天調查後，科隆警方說，他們登記的跨年夜猥褻、性侵、偷竊案已有三百七十九件，嫌犯以難民與非法移民居多，目前暫時拘押卅二人，其中廿二人是尋求庇護者，另有兩名德國人與一名美國人。

目擊者說，他們目睹數百名女性在跨年活動中，慘遭數百人猥褻、搶劫甚至性侵。警方說，其中約百分之四十通報案例與性暴力有關，「調查重點是來自北非地區的男子，其中大多尋求庇護或非法入境德國」。

跨年夜的集體猥褻案在德國引起公憤，排外組織「反西方伊斯蘭化」（Pegida）遊行時，向維持秩序的警察丟擲鞭炮與瓶罐，警方回以催淚瓦斯及水砲，示威者指責警方未能遏止難民與非法移民攻擊婦女，高喊高喊「梅克爾下台」、手持「不歡迎難民狼」等標語。

左派人士也在現場反示威，並向Pegida成員叫囂，警方則居間隔開雙方。估計正反雙方共約吸引三千人參與示威。科隆政府派遣逾兩千名警力維護示威秩序。

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/world/europe/after-assaults-in-cologne-merkel-proposes-tougher-asylum-laws.html

Video：Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, proposed stricter laws regulating asylum seekers on Saturday after protests over a string of New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Cologne.
http://nyti.ms/1Od809D

2016-01-11．聯合報．A13．國際．編譯陳世欽、王麗娟