German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised on Aug. 26 to increase deportations and strengthen knife laws as he visited the scene of a mass stabbing in Germany.
Scholz was paying his respects in Solingen, North Rhine-Westphalia, after the Aug. 23 attack, allegedly carried out by a suspected Islamic extremist from Syria. Three people were killed, and eight were wounded.
Scholz, speaking after he joined regional officials in laying a white flower at a makeshift memorial in the west German city, said he was “furious and angry.”
“We must do everything to ensure that such things never happen in our country, if possible,” Scholz said of the attack.
He said that would include toughening knife laws in particular and that “this should and will happen very quickly,”
The suspect handed himself over to police on Aug. 24, a day after the attack at the “Festival of Diversity” celebrating Solingen’s 650th anniversary.
The 26-year-old had had his asylum application rejected and was supposed to be deported last year to Bulgaria, where he first entered Europe, but that never happened because he disappeared for a time, according to German media reports.
That fact has revived criticism of the German government’s migration and deportation policies.
Legislation intended to ease deportations of unsuccessful asylum-seekers was approved by lawmakers in January. Other laws to ease the deportation of foreigners who publicly approve of terrorist acts are also being drafted.
“We will have to do everything so that those who aren’t allowed to stay in Germany are sent back and deported,” Scholz said. “We have massively expanded the possibilities to carry out such deportations.”
The chancellor said deportations had increased by 30 percent this year already.
“We will look very closely at how we can contribute to raising these figures even further,” Scholz said.
He said measures, including checks on Germany’s eastern borders, have reduced the number of foreigners arriving “irregularly” but acknowledged that there is a need for improvement there, too.
After an Afghan immigrant stabbed a police officer to death and injured four others during an attack in May, Scholz said Germany would recommence deporting Afghan and Syrian criminals.
Berlin currently doesn’t send convicted criminals who hail from those nations back to their country of origin, as the government has no diplomatic relations with the Taliban in Kabul and considers the security situation in Syria too fragile to allow deportations.
Scholz said in June that his government was working on solutions to enable the deportation of convicted Afghans to Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, and there has been discussion in Germany about allowing deportations to Syria.
On Aug. 26, Interior Ministry spokesperson Sonja Kock said the government is still working intensively on beginning those deportations.
Speaking alongside Scholz was North Rhine-Westphalia Governor Hendrik Wüst, a member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) opposition party, which has frequently criticized the government in Berlin over immigration.
Wüst said he was thankful that more action had been announced but that “announcements alone won’t be enough” and that “action must follow.”
“We have been discussing the consequences of Mannheim for three months ... it’s enough,” CDU leader Friedrich Merz said on German television on Aug. 25. “We must now do something together.
“We have people in Germany we don’t want to have here, and we must ensure that we don’t have even more coming.”
The attack comes as the eastern regions of Saxony and Thuringia prepare to hold state elections where the Alternative für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party is strong.
