Neo-Nazi mob rampages through East German city of Chemnitz
By
Johannes Stern
28 August 2018
Yesterday evening, some 1,000 neo-Nazis gathered in the East German city of Chemnitz and chanted right-wing slogans. The day before, hundreds of right-wing extremists marched through the centre of the city and chased people they identified as immigrants or refugees. Footage posted on social media shows right-wing demonstrators threatening and attacking people and chanting slogans including “This is our city,” “Get out of our city,” and “Free, social, and national.”
The anti-foreigner demonstrations were called by the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) and a right-wing football hooligan group known as “Kaotica Chemnitz.”
The right-wing extremists staged the demonstrations in response to the death of a 35-year-old man on Saturday night. The circumstances of the man’s death are unclear. According to police, “several people of different nationalities” were involved in a dispute after a city festival. Several participants then fled the crime scene, and a 22-year-old Iraqi and a 23-year-old Syrian were taken into custody. The two men are accused by the police of repeatedly stabbing the 35-year-old.
On Monday, media outlets reported that the deceased was a Cuban-born German who had “liked” several anti-Nazi social media posts and had made statements critical of the AfD.
Both the federal government and the Saxony state government were forced to distance themselves from the actions of the right-wing mob. “What was seen in Chemnitz yesterday and recorded in videos has no place in our constitutional state,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday in Berlin. “We do not accept such mobs, hunting down people who appear different or foreign, or…