BERLIN, Aug. 30 (Xinhua) -- The Federation of German Police Officers (BDK) has issued a public statement on Thursday which calls for a swift crack-down on Germany's far-right scene in response to widely-publicized riots in the town of Chemnitz.
Speaking to the newspaper "Handelsblatt" BDK vice president Sebastian Fiedler said it was undeniable that open racism was becoming "acceptable" again in parts of German society. He warned that the development provided fertile grounds for right-wing extremism to emerge and politically-motivated crimes to be committed.
According to Fiedler, right-wing extremists currently had the feeling that their crimes were backed by the population and hence justified. As a consequence, policymakers would now have to resort to "uncompromising legal prosecution of right-wing criminals", as well as "prevention strategies in an entirely new dimension" in order to reverse the worrying trend.
BDK president Ernst Walter told "Handelsblatt" during the same interview that German police faced a dramatic situation in which they could no longer guarantee security and order across all parts of the country. "We already have temporary police-free zones because of the severe lack of personnel", Walter said.
Since Sunday, more than 6,000 individuals have joined two far-right rallies in Chemnitz to protest against the alleged murder of a 35-year-old German by a 22-year-old Iraqi and a 23-year-old Syrian national during a violent brawl.
Local police struggled to regain control of the situation, as violent protestors threatened civilians with foreign appearances, clashed with a separate anti-Nazi march and used the banned Hitler salute on the streets of the East German town.
The events forced the German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) to emphasize that her government would not tolerate citizens' resorting to lynch justice rather than turning to the responsible security authorities to resolve incidents of crime. "We have video material of angry mobs chasing down civilians and of open hatred on the street, neither of which is compatible with the rule of law", Merkel said.
Questioned by press whether police in Chemnitz were still capable of doing their job, Merkel insisted that local security forces were doing their best to prevent further violence. She welcomed an offer by Interior Minister Horst Seehofer (CSU) to offer Saxon state authorities federal assistance to "restore law and order" in the city.
In the meanwhile, however, security authorities have become the target of criticism themselves after the confidential arrest warrant against the 22-year-old Iraqi murder suspect was published online. The Dresden State Prosecution Office has launched an investigation to determine whether official secrets were illegally forwarded to right-wing extremists.
Jan Timke, a municipal politician in the city of Bremen and federal police officer on leave of absence, was named on Thursday by prosecutors as the potential source of the leak. Timke is a member of the right-wing voter group "Citizens in anger" and was one of the several members of the scene, who had shared the arrest warrant on social media.
The document was also spread by Alternative for Germany (AfD) politicians and Lutz Bachmann, the notorious founder of the "Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the Occident" (PEGIDA) movement who has previously been convicted of theft, breaking and entering, assault, drug dealing and sedition. The incident follows close on the heels of the so-called "Pegizei" (a combination of the PEGIDA acronym and the German word for police, note) scandal in Saxony in which the state criminal police office stands accused of maintaining close ties with far-right groups and undermining press freedom.
The increasingly embattled Saxon governor Michael Kretschmer (CDU) is scheduled to attend a citizens' discussion forum in Chemnitz on Thursday in which talks are bound to turn to the city's troubled past week. Local police have asked for reinforcements from five other German states following an announcement by the far-right "Pro Chemnitz" group organize another rally during the event.
