Germany strengthens security against both jihadist threat and extreme right By Rachel Knaebel transl. by Andrew Taylor, Nov 17, 15

Source: Basta
link: http://www.bastamag.net/En-Allemagne-les-discours-anti-refugies-tentent-de-tirer-parti-des-attentats-de
translation: Andrew Taylor

Monday evening, three days after the attacks on Paris, about 10 000 people have once again marched in the German city of Dresden answering the call of the Islamophobic  movement 'Pegida'. The rally was not as huge as the previous weeks. But as after the attacks of  the 7th and 9th of January the Pegida organizers immediately seized on the Paris massacre to stir up racist anti-refugee hate.

They soon began to connect the links between the Paris bombings  and the German policy of relative openness to the Syrian refugees, the Afghan, Iraqi and Eritreans. The first indications however point to French and Belgian attackers, and a man who went by the Balkan route after his registration in Greece, but the truthfulness of Syrian passport found near his body, to the entrance to the Stade de France, has not been established. The extreme German right has not required that the authorities provide some background on the identity of some of the commandos in order to to stigmatize refugees. The spokesman of the new party of populist and xenophobic right AFD has written on her Facebook profile Sunday: "Open doors and windows is an invitation to crime. Opening wide the borders has the same effect. "

The same kind of argument was launched the day after the deadly attacks by members of the Bavarian rightist CSU party, a member of the Merkel government. For weeks Merkel's right partners have asserted Germany close its borders to the thousands of asylum-seekers who continue to arrive in the country.

In this atmosphere, the German Department of  The Interior on Saturday announced a strengthening of anti-terrorism and security measures in Germany, not only towards the radical Islamist movement, but also to guard against possible violent actions perpetrated by the 'extreme right. "We monitor closely the Islamists who are known to us and their supporters, but also the far-right groups that could react to such attacks," the minister said.

"Many people seek protection and security in Europe. We must not make them pay for the fact that they come from the region from which the terror came to us. We must protect them too, "insisted Social Democrat Sigmar Gabriel, also a member of the German government. Since the beginning of the year, the criminal police have recorded hundreds of attacks against asylum seekers homes across Germany, including dozens of fires.