BERLIN ( Associated Press) – The number of politically motivated crimes in Germany rose 23% last year compared to the previous year, Germany’s top security official said Tuesday.
Interior Minister Nancy Fasser said the increase included a sharp increase in crimes that could not be assigned to traditional categories of crimes inspired by right-wing or left-wing ideology.
A significant proportion of these “more diverse and spreading” crimes were committed in relation to coronavirus restrictions and Germany’s 2021 federal election, Fesser told reporters in Berlin.
Overall, Germany had 55,048 politically motivated crimes last year, the most since public agencies began tracking the data in 2001, the minister said.
“We must defend our democracy with all our might,” Faesar said. Politically motivated crime is an indicator of the intensity of social conflicts.
The number of politically motivated crimes includes 3,889 violent crimes, a 16% increase compared to 2020. Faser said that 41% of the victims of politically motivated violence had been attacked by right-wing extremists, a force he called “the greatest extremist threat to our people”. Country.”
The minister said anti-Semitic crimes increased by 29 percent compared to the previous year, which numbered 3,027. He said crimes against Jews are mostly committed by right-wing extremists, but also by Islamist-influenced and left-wing extremists.
“It is a matter of shame for our country how much anti-Semitic movement and disdain for humanity is being spread today,” Fasser said. “We are aware of our responsibility to fight anti-Semitism with all our might and protect the Jews.”
The number of crimes attributed to the far left fell nearly 8% to 10,113 crimes.
Holger Muench, chairman of the Federal Criminal Police Office, said the total number of politically motivated crimes in Germany had doubled in the past 10 years.
The trend “reflects a polarizing and radical tendencies in certain sections of the population, which pose a great challenge to social coexistence, the rule of law and democracy,” he said.
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