美国国家公共电台 NPR In Germany, A Murder Sparks Anti-Immigrant Demonstrations

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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Close to 10,000 protesters descended¹ upon the small East German city of Chemnitz today, sparked by the stabbing death a week ago of a German man allegedly by two Middle Eastern asylum-seekers. The demonstration² raised new concerns about the extent of anti-refugee sentiment in Germany. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is in Chemnitz covering the demonstrations³, and we go to her now. Soraya, hello. Thanks so much for joining us.

SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE⁴: Hi. My pleasure.

MARTIN: So what was the atmosphere there? I take it there was some violence despite a heavy police presence?

NELSON: Yes. I mean, certainly a lot less than earlier in the week, when this all started here. I mean, the murder, as mentioned, happened a week ago, and there's been nothing but protest since. But today, we had many of hundreds of police officers who had come here from all over Germany, including horseback units and K-9s and special riot police. But even with this heavy police presence, a number of so-called antifa demonstrators - these are leftists and often violent protesters who come from around the country - they were able to break through the cordon⁵ to clash with the far-right protesters who took part in a silent march across Chemnitz.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking German).

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Speaking German).

NELSON: About a dozen riot policemen chased down the antifa protesters who managed to sneak⁶ in among the far-right marchers and yelled slurs⁷ at them. And despite pleas by the far-right organizers for their people to stay calm, many of those protesters screamed at police and accused them of failing to protect them just like the Germans stabbing victim they were marching for. And his name was Daniel Hillig.

MARTIN: So what do we know about what happened to Hillig - about his murder?

NELSON: Well, we seem to know more about him than what actually happened, as police have been pretty tight lipped. They do have two men in custody⁸. But what we do know about Hillig is that he's 35, a carpenter. His father was from Cuba. The far-right claim that he was trying to defend a woman who was being harassed⁹, but there is no police claim about this. But again, it's something that's managed to get people riled up here. And the two men in custody that I mentioned, they're a Syrian and Iraqi asylum-seeker. And the Iraqi, as it turns out, had been ordered to be deported¹⁰ back to Bulgaria, which is where he was last year. And, in fact, Bulgaria had accepted that they would take him back, but it's unclear why he was never deported then.

MARTIN: How are the residents there reacting? It's my understanding that a lot of these demonstrators, from what you're telling us, are from out of town. So how are the residents of that area reacting to all of this?

NELSON: Well, they're very annoyed with the media coverage¹¹. They're very annoyed with these people who come from the outside. But they also don't really know how to react or what to do about it. I mean, a lot of the townspeople were in fact with the far-right demonstrators today. There were definitely many townspeople among them or lining¹² the route showing their support for this. They had a much larger crowd, about 6,500 according to earlier estimates which were later revised downwards¹³ somewhat by the city because I think they were embarrassed by the fact that the counter-demonstration which talked about heart rather than incitement¹⁴ only drew about 2,500. They revised those numbers up to about 4,000 later.

MARTIN: So overall, though, I know you've reported quite a bit on how the German Chancellor¹⁵ Angela Merkel's refugee policy is affecting politics across Germany. What is her government doing about the kind of sentiment about what's happening in Chemnitz?

NELSON: Well, according to residents here not enough. And we're only now starting to see some of the federal government ministers showing up. The family minister came yesterday and laid flowers at the site where this young man had been stabbed to death. It's basically what Angela Merkel's saying is that the far-right movement here is not acceptable, but they don't seem to really come up with solutions yet as to what they will do to ease the tensions.

MARTIN: That's NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson speaking to us from Chemnitz, Germany. Soraya, thank you.

NELSON: You're welcome, Michel.