Germany has 4th day of protests against the deportation of foreigners

Protests in Germany continued this Tuesday (16 January 2024) for the 4th consecutive day against the deportation of foreigners and asylum seekers in the country. In recent days, acts have been recorded in the cities of Leipzeig, Rostock, Essen and Berlin.

In November 2023, politicians from the right-wing AfD (Alternative for Germany) party discussed a plan with neo-Nazis to carry out a mass deportation of immigrants. The issue became public after a report in a local newspaper, triggering the acts. The information is from Guardian.

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UNDERSTAND THE CASE

According to the German outlet Correctiv, on November 25, 2023, a secret meeting was held between members of the AfD party, nationalist student fraternities, doctors, lawyers and businesspeople at a hotel in Potsdam, in eastern Germany. The same vehicle states that communication between participants was carried out only through letters. A reporter would have intercepted one of these exchanges of messages.

The journalist would then have participated in one of the meetings with a camera and filmed the members present. In the images, it is possible to see former deputy Roland Hartwig saying he is representing Alice Weidel, one of the leaders of the AfD and candidate for chancellor in the 2017 elections.

With exclusive images from the event, the reporter reported that the plan inspired by the ideas of Martin Sellner, a prominent politician on the Austrian right, were central points of that event. According to the journalist, Sellner said in a speech that there are 3 target groups of immigrants who should be extradited from the country: asylum seekers, foreigners with residence and German citizens “not assimilated”.

On Monday (January 15), Alice Weidel announced that she was breaking off relations with Hartwig after confirming her participation in the event. Weidel said she was not aware of the former deputy’s involvement and that the AfD does not support the deportation plan.

Other party politicians spoke out in favor of the plan “remigration” discussed in November 2023. “Migration is a loss for our country. We need a turnaround in migration policy. We need a #Remigration!“ stated René Springer, parliamentarian from the State of Brandenburg, on his profile on X (formerly Twitter).