Swingeing Criticism
January 10, 2008
The groups accuse the senior Christian Democrat of feeding racism by seizing on the issue of crime committed by young immigrants ahead of tightly-contested elections in Hesse at the end of January.
In the letter, Merkel is praised by the organizations for setting up the integration summit to promote dialogue with migrant groups. But they go on to find fault with her staunch support for Koch.
"In place of the open, constructive talks and objective solutions needed, they are causing considerable damage with their election rhetoric," the letter states.
The victim protection group Weisser Ring, however, criticized the immigrant groups for downplaying the seriousness and extent of the attacks.
"The current problems are the tip of the iceberg," Hans-Dieter Schwind, the organization's head, told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung. "If they are not deal with preventively as well as repressively, they will bother us for decades."
The Hesse premier used a much publicized attack by two Greek and Turkish youths on a German pensioner at a Munich subway train last month to call for tougher punishment for young delinquents and deportation of non- German offenders.
Coalition partners at loggerheads over the tactics
The CDU leadership backed the state premier's call, while its Social Democratic coalition partner accused it of "populism" and said existing laws were sufficient to deal with the issue.
The groups rejected deportation as a tool to deal with the crime problem. They said it was not right hat "responsibility for the problems that have been created in our country should be offloaded on to the country where the parents or the grandparents came from."
They also said high crime levels among young migrants were a result of their social rather than their ethnic background, and demanded equal access to education and professional training.
Kenan Kolat, the head of the Turkish Community in Germany, has called on voters of Turkish origin not to vote for the premier. He accused Koch of "fanning racist resentment in society." "We must not pave the way for political arsonists," he said.
CDU in Hesse partly responsible for problem?
Koch came under further pressure after being forced to admit on German television on Wednesday, Dec. 9, that his state was the slowest when it came to dealing with youth crime cases. This has led to further criticism that cuts made by Koch's government were partly to blame for the problem.
Apart from backing from Merkel and other conservative party members, the premier has found support for his campagin from the far-right National Democratic Party. Party president Udo Voigt said the NPD would benefit from Koch's stance.
"When established politicians adopt the NPD's arguments, it will lead to more citizens placing their trust in the policies of the NPD and as a result vote for the NPD," Voigt said in Berlin on Tuesday, Dec. 8.
The president of Germany's national council of Jews, Charlotte Knobloch, has warned that highlighting the ethnicity of suspected criminals might play into the hands of neo-Nazi campaigners.
She said crimes committed by youths with an immigrant background were "a welcome argument" for NPD functionaries to call into question the right of foreigners to live in Germany.
The NPD is represented in the state parliaments of Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, both in the former communist east of Germany. It won 1.6 per cent of the vote in the last national elections in 2005.