Stunning comments underscore conservative backlash against Merkel’s open border policy
German Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger has asserted that conservatives who criticize the wave of migrants flooding into the country on Internet chat rooms are “just as awful” as the migrants who sexually molested dozens of women in Cologne on New Years Eve.
Women in Cologne, Hamburg, Stuttgart and other cities were attacked and sexually assaulted by Arab and North African men during a rampage that has shocked the country. 14 out of 15 of the men arrested so far are Syrian refugees who recently arrived in Germany, according to a leaked police report.
The sex attackers bragged to police about how their refugee status gave them special privileges.
“I am Syrian. You have to treat me kindly. Mrs Merkel invited me,” said one the culprits.
However, Interior Minister Ralf Jaeger directed an equal share of his anger towards Germans who cited the attacks as a reason why Angela Merkel should reconsider her open border refugee policy.
“What happens on the right-wing platforms and in chat rooms is at least as awful as the acts of those assaulting the women,” said Jaeger. “This is poisoning the climate of our society.”
Quite how online criticism of mass immigration can even be considered in the same context as dozens of women in cities across Germany being terrorized, beaten and molested by up to a thousand migrants is unfathomable.
While authorities have been ordering German police to cover-up rapes and other crimes committed by migrants, Germans themselves who express hostility towards the refugee program have been warned that they could face prosecution for Internet posts.
Last year, Facebook announced that it was working with the German government to crack down on anti-migrant sentiment.
The plan was first leaked during a conversation between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and German Chancellor Angela Merkel which was caught on a hot mic. Zuckerberg promised Merkel that he was working on censoring anti-migrant posts.
It subsequently emerged that the German government and Facebook were working with ex-Stasi agent Anetta Kahane to identify “xenophobic” posts made on the social networking website and punish people who make them with fines and jail sentences.
