This time it was not the far-right German party AfD who clearly established the correlation between the increase in immigration and crime, but rather the Social Democratic Interior Minister Nancy Faeser who last Tuesday presented the alarming numbers of the phenomenon which no longer even in Germany it can be downplayed.
The concern concerns the increase, in 2023, in the number of criminals of foreign origin, which amounts to 923,000 people, representing 41.1% of all arrested suspects. “We must address this issue frankly, without hesitation or resentment,” the minister said during a press conference, highlighting a general deterioration in the security situation. Last year, 5.9 million crimes were recorded in Germany, marking an increase of 5.5%. Acts of violence increased by 8.6%
In today's edition, Le Figaro notes that this declaration marks a turning point in the long-standing debate on immigration. This issue, invisible and imperceptible during the 2021 election campaign, which brought the social-liberal coalition to power, suddenly resurfaced with the influx of refugees into the country. Last year, the number of asylum requests increased by 51% (329,000), causing many housing difficulties in the municipalities before the settlement. Six months before regional elections in eastern Germany, where the AfD enjoys considerable electoral support, the issue is becoming central to the debate on public safety. The AfD makes fun of the government's change of direction: “Nancy Faeser's reaction is pure mockery: she presumes to raise this problem after having, for years, criminalised, denigrated and stigmatized those who spoke out”, writes the AfD in a note. right-wing party, targeted several times by the minister.
It is clear that the increase in irregular immigration to Germany is negatively affecting safety in public spaces, with a particularly severe impact on women and girls. In addition to the violence already perpetrated by German citizens, there is the risk of sexual crimes by asylum seekers arriving in the country. Police crime statistics highlight this trend: between 2015 and 2022, more than 8,590 cases of rape, sexual assault and other forms of sexual assault committed by immigrants were reported. The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) uses the term “immigrants” to describe those who have come to Germany through the asylum system, and more than 90 percent of the victims of these crimes are women.
The situation is equally worrying if we look at the figures for 2022: according to police crime statistics, almost 12,000 cases of rape and sexual violence were reported. Of the approximately 10,000 suspects, 6,366 were German citizens and 3,679 non-Germans, while immigrants accounted for 1,155 of the suspects. This shows that, despite making up a small percentage of the population, immigrants are overrepresented in crimes against sexual self-determination. As we write, we learn that two Iraqis accused of being members of the Islamic State and of keeping two young Yazidi girls enslaved and of having sexually and physically abused them have been arrested in Germany. The man and woman, identified only as Twana HS and Asia RA in accordance with German privacy rules, were arrested in Bavaria on Tuesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement. They are accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, as well as membership of a terrorist organization.
The suspects were married and were members of ISIS in Iraq and Syria between October 2015 and December 2017, prosecutors said. They allegedly held a five-year-old Yazidi girl as slaves starting in late 2015 and a 12-year-old girl since October 2017. The indictment alleges that the man also raped both girls repeatedly and that the woman prepared the room and put makeup on one of the girls. The couple also exercised “harsh physical violence” on the girls, who were prevented from practicing their religion and forced to do housework and look after children, prosecutors said. The man on one occasion allegedly hit the older girl with a broomstick, the woman is accused of scalding the smaller girl's hand with hot water and both children were repeatedly forced to stand on one leg for half an hour as punishment. Before leaving Syria in November 2017, the suspects handed the girls over to other ISIS members, prosecutors added.
“All of this served the organization's goal of destroying the Yazidi religion,” the indictment reads. Justice Minister Marco Buschmann welcomed the arrests. “The promise of the principle of universal jurisdiction is clear: impunity for the genocide against Yazidis must be fought around the world,” he said. Last month, a German federal court rejected a German convert to Islam's appeal against her 14-year sentence for allowing a 5-year-old Yazidi girl she and her husband had enslaved when they were members of the IS in Iraq, dying of thirst in a field. Sun. Her ex-husband, an Iraqi citizen, was found guilty in November 2021 and sentenced to life in prison.
