Sharp rise in German attacks on refugee centres

BERLIN: Far-right crime in Germany soared 24 percent last year to the highest level in six years, with a “shameful” surge in attacks on refugee centres, an official report released on Tuesday showed.
As the number of asylum seekers in Germany has risen, so has aggression against them, an annual report on politically motivated crime by the domestic security watchdog, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, found?
“Hatred and violence against refugees and asylum seekers in Germany are shameful,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said as he presented the findings for 2014.
Europe’s top economic power “has a responsibility to those who seek protection”, he said.
The report found that violent crimes motivated by right-wing extremism soared 24 percent last year to 990.
Far-right attacks and xenophobic campaigns against refugee homes more than tripled during the same period to 170.
Europe is grappling with a large influx of people fleeing war and poverty in the world’s crisis zones.
Germany alone took in 200,000 asylum seekers last year and expects as many as 450,000 this year.
The sharpest rise since the 1990s wars in the Balkans has been met with racist sentiment in parts of Germany, demonstrated in the rise of the anti-Islam PEGIDA movement in the eastern city of Dresden which peaked at 25,000 protesters early this year.
As Germany has struggled to accommodate the newcomers, it has seen a spate of arson attacks against buildings set to house refugees, most recently overnight on Sunday in the town of Meissen outside Dresden.
In the nearby village of Freital, dozens of protesters have been rallying nightly against a refugee centre.
De Maiziere on Tuesday thanked Germans “who tirelessly, often on a volunteer basis, help refugees and welcome them”.