A police officer lost his life, and tensions run high within Germany's parliament.
In the days before the funeral of slain police officer Rouven L., Germany's legislative body debates the aftermath of a terrorist assault perpetrated by an Islamist immigrant. This tragic incident prompts numerous politicians to discuss the appropriate consequences and potential prevention measures. There is a consensus among the parties represented in parliament: citizens who commit serious crimes and aren't German should be deported from the country after completing their sentences. However, several counterarguments are made.
The SPD argues that measures should already be in place. The Union, on the other hand, question the effectiveness of these measures, demanding decisive action. The Greens raise concerns about the potential risks of deportation to Afghanistan and Syria, while the far-right AfD calls for the deportation of all non-German residents without permanent residence permits.
On the day before the funeral, Rouven L. will be buried in Mannheim. The focused conversation in the parliament about the implications of this horrific crime reveals a political uneasiness to take responsibility and to discuss sensible security measures when dealing with migrants. The Afghan-born attacker came to Germany as a minor refugee during the war in 2015 and had not aroused suspicion earlier. The lawmakers' rhetoric and allegations create a tension-filled atmosphere.
People are aware that there is a problem with deporting individuals to Afghanistan due to its insecure surroundings. There are no available operational partners in Kabul, which hampers the implementation of deportations. Germany no longer maintains diplomatic relations with the Taliban regime on an equal footing, joining other Western nations in their efforts.
The CDU and CSU tabled fourteen proposed measures to counter Islamist terrorism. Not all of them are directly influenced by deportation concerns. There's also a question over Suleiman A.'s fate in Germany: the country doesn't deport individuals to conflict-stricken Afghanistan due to security threats. Moreover, the German government can't identify necessary contact partners in Kabul on the matter of deportations.
The deputy leader of the Union, Alexander Throlm, suggested indefinite detainment of foreign criminals post-sentencing. He wants to see a kind of "triple prison" for foreign criminals where they would be either deported back to their countries of origin or imprisoned as punishment. He calls the plan a "three-sided prison" for foreign criminals and emphasizes that there is only one option: returning to their countries.
Some question the compatibility of an indefinite detainment system with the German Basic Law, EU law, and international conventions. Throlm has asked for deportations to Afghanistan although the federal government has maintained limited contact with the Taliban-ruled Kabul government. He states that his party had been requesting deportations to Afghanistan for more than a year and a half, proposing it after the recent police killing.
The Greens criticized the Union's accusation of slowing deportations due to ideological reasons. Green interior politician Irene Mihalic clarifies that her party had already supported the deportation of criminals in 2020. The Union, responsible for the federal administration when the SPD governed, faced fierce criticism from the SPD and the Greens.
The Social Democrats accused the Union of political staging and called for an urgent shift from finger-pointing to effective action. SPD interior politician Daniel Baldy described the Union's stance as "cheap populism." He and SPD colleague Sebastian Hartmann claim that the CDU and CSU could have taken action years ago. They deem it inappropriate to cultivate a heated political debate during the period of grieving prior to the funeral.
Baldy and Hartmann explained that Interior Minister Nancy Faeser is considering different approaches to deporting criminals to Syria and Afghanistan. The governing coalition, with the SPD in charge, has allocated more federal funds to the Federal Police, raised their salaries, and reinstated border controls, while expanding the list of reasons for deportation.
Mihalic cautioned against the potential consequences of deporting Islamist criminals to Afghanistan and Syria. She noted that the Taliban would likely celebrate them as heroes and reissue them with a new identity to continue committing crimes.
Fellow Green Party member Lamya Kaddor affirmed their support for the deportation of criminals. However, she emphasized that politics should not make promises it can't keep. Concerning the Union MPs, she urged them to clarify how they plan to carry out these deportations lawfully. The Taliban don't just accept returning Afghan citizens without demanding money and political recognition.
The last few weeks have seen much discussion about deportations to Afghanistan, with Sweden frequently mentioned as an example. Sweden, however, has only lost five people to the Taliban and it remains unclear how this happened.
The AfD seeks to maintain its stance on hard migration policies. AfD speakers do not touch on how the deportations would be executed practically. Gottfried Curio mentions Sweden and Turkey as examples, but they don't interact with the Taliban at the same level. If deportations to Afghanistan and Syria were possible, Curio said, then they would indeed deport all rejected asylum seekers. The AfD deems Afghans and Syrians deportable. Only a small minority of them received individual asylum status; most are merely shielded from deportation due to ongoing conflict and state terror in their native countries.
Curio and his AfD colleague Steffen Janich are eager to portray the AfD as the pioneers in strict migration policies. Regarding crime rates, the Union states, "We need to learn from the AfD." However, this shouldn't be trusted. As long as the Union opts for collaboration with other parties over the AfD, it's just trying to "bark and delay," Curio added.
The harshest criticism in the debate came not from the AfD, but Social Democrat Hartmann towards his governing coalition partner, the FDP. In the debate over IP address storage, he implored, "Give me action, not just talk." The SPD supports extensive storage periods for IP addresses compared to the FDP. Furthermore, Hartmann stated that a "savings account" isn't the solution to Germany's security challenges. This tragic incident involving a young police officer's death in Mannheim was used as an argument in the ongoing federal government's budget dispute. The discourse presented more a sense of tension in Berlin than the actuality of the situation in Mannheim.
