By Gunnar Schupelius
The SPD, the Greens and the left all pounce on the CDU because they want to talk about the immigrant background of the New Year’s rioters. But that only distracts from the topic, says Gunnar Schupelius.
After the New Year’s Eve riots, a major argument broke out in Berlin politics about the causes.
On New Year’s Eve, rescue vehicles were attacked without restraint, especially in the Hermannplatz, Sonnenallee and Gropiusstadt areas, and 41 police officers were injured, some of them seriously. Among the 145 suspects arrested were 140 men, mostly young, 27 of them even under 18 years old.
Since then, the SPD, Left and Greens have all joined forces to attack the CDU because they are asking about the origins of the violent criminals. “The group of perpetrators must be clearly named,” says CDU top candidate Kai Wegner and demands that the police not only disclose the nationality of the suspects, but also their names, including their first names.
Wegner’s point is that the majority of New Year’s perpetrators apparently come from Arab or Afghan milieus in which the German state is rejected and local culture is despised. Even if you have a German passport, this influence is significant.
For this, Wegner was accused of racism by Red-Green-Red. The CDU is apparently therefore asking “the first names of the German suspects in order to deny them being German,” claimed Left MP Niklas Schrader on Twitter.
Is this accusation justified? No, of course not, because Wegner doesn’t want to belittle people with German passports and foreign origins. He wants to point out a big problem and influence the milieus from which the New Year’s Eve violence came. That’s why he demonstratively visited the youth sports coach Izzet Mafratoglu on Friday, who is trying to prevent violence and integrate in the “Steinmetzkiez” of Schöneberg.
And, of course, the cause must be named and researched. Of the 145 arrested on New Year’s Eve, 111 have foreign passports. Eleven of them have two nationalities, one German and one other. The largest groups are Afghans with 27 and Syrians with 21 suspects.
Why are the young Silvester men predominantly of Middle Eastern background and not Norwegian, Czech, Russian, Ukrainian or Spanish?
Of course you have to ask this question. It doesn’t help when the Governing Mayor Giffey (SPD) explains that they are all “Berlin children”. And when Senator Jarasch, the top woman in the Greens, claims that it doesn’t matter what the migrant background of the perpetrators is, that doesn’t get us any further.
These comments obscure reality. It must be in everyone’s interest that things don’t go as far in Berlin-Neukölln as in Brussels-Molenbeek or in the suburbs of Paris, where violence has gotten out of control.
Is Gunnar Schupelius right? Call: 030/2591 73153 or email: [email protected]