German chancellor, Angela Merkel is facing an ultimatum from senior members of her Christian Democrat Union (CDU) Party, to get rid of her “open door” migration policy, as new figures have emerged, revealing a large inflow of migrants from north Africa into Germany, alleging to be refugees.
It is said that senior members of CDU and the Christian Social Union (CSU), will send Angela Merkel a confidential letter, which will ask the government to control national borders more severely as over 50,000 people have requested asylum in Germany, since early January. The letter allegedly threatened for a parliamentary vote to close Germany's borders if their demands were not met.
If the vote is conducted, this could not only be embarrassing for the chancellor, but it can also imperil her authority as current polls are not favourable to her. In a survey conducted by a pollster, INSA, 61% of those who participated in the survey have become less happy about accepting refugees since the New Year's Eve assaults; 63% believe there are already too many asylum-seekers in Germany, whereas only 29% evaluated Merkel's approach to handling the country positively.
This move comes after the sexual assault and thefts from hundreds of women on New Year's Eve, in Cologne, Germany's fourth-largest city. The attacks were carried out by a thousand young men who allegedly appeared to be of Arab or north African. Over 600 women made criminal complaints of sexual assault or theft in Cologne.
Although it was thought that the perpetrators were from Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, groups of people have been taking their anger out on dark-skinned immigrants; men from Syria and Pakistan have faced revenge beatings from vigilante groups.
There was also a face-off between 1,700 anti-migrant demonstrators in Cologne, against 1,300 pro-migrant demonstrators, which had to be intervened by the police due to the outbreak.
One of the victims, Jamin, shared her horrifying experience of the assault. “It started off tame enough, touching my behind. Then I was surrounded, I felt helpless, I was in shock. It felt so foreign, I know this sounds weird but it did not seem like Germany.”
Due to the alarming attacks on women on New Year's Eve, and after incidents reported at 18 if Munich's public swimming pools, many swimming pools in Bavaria have started to issue a cartoon guide which warns migrant men not to grope women wearing bikinis.
The pictorial leaflet is printed in several languages such as French, Arabic, Somali and Pashto. It also includes safety tips which emphasises the verbal and physical harassment of women.
While these leaflets are being issued at several public swimming pools, after receiving six complaints about “sexually offensive behaviour”, Bornheim went ahead and banned all male asylum seekers above the age of 18 from swimming pools.
Angela Merkel and her governing alliance have responded by promising that the offenders will “feel the full force of the law”, while also suggesting that more asylum-seekers who commit crimes would be deported. However, not all of the offenders of the Cologne attacks has been identified, hence, not all can be prosecuted. Additionally, in a typical scenario in Germany, criminals are not deported when they receive a sentence of less than three years. The sexual offences which occurred fell short of rape and carried lighter penalties.
Post the Cologne attacks, on 12th January, interior minister, Thomas Maiziere, and the justice minister, Heiko Maas, stated that they would expand the meaning of rape as currently, an assault is not considered as rape unless the victim fights back.
