Köln (Germany) (AFP) --- German Chancellor Angela Merkel
backed stricter laws to expel convicted refugees, as clashes erupted
at far-right protests in Köln over a rash of sexual assaults blamed
on asylum seekers.
Köln police said they have now recorded 379 cases of New Year's
Eve violence -- ranging from groping to theft to two reported rapes
-- with asylum seekers and illegal migrants making up the majority
of suspects.
With anger growing at the scale of the attacks, supporters of the
xenophobic PEGIDA movement marched in protests that briefly turned
violent in the western city.
Police used tear gas and water cannon to clear the rally of
far-right supporters after protesters flung firecrackers and bottles
at officers they said had failed to prevent the New Year's attacks
on women.
Witnesses described terrifying scenes of hundreds of women running a
gauntlet of groping hands, lewd insults and robberies in the mob
violence.
Of the cases reported so far, 40 percent related to sexual
violence, Köln police said in a statement.
"Those in focus of criminal police investigations are mostly
people from North African countries.
The majority of them are asylum
seekers and people who are in Germany illegally," police added,
confirming witness accounts.
The allegations have stoked criticism of Merkel's liberal open-door
policy -- which brought 1.1 million new asylum seekers to Germany
last year.
As questions grew over the country's ability to integrate the
newcomers, it emerged late Saturday that a man who was killed trying
to attack a police station in Paris on Thursday had lived in an
asylum seeker shelter in Germany.
Revealing that they had raided the man's apartment, German police
did not specify if he was an asylum seeker, but a source close to
the matter told AFP that the man was indeed registered as one.
In Tunisia, a woman who claimed to be the man's mother confirmed
that he had been living in Germany but denied he had any links to
extremist groups.
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'Köln changed everything' -
In Köln, hundreds of PEGIDA supporters waved German flags and signs
saying "Rapefugees not welcome", as they shouted "Merkel
raus" (Merkel out).
The rattle of a helicopter circling in the skies and the
occasional bang of a firecracker added to tensions as
counter-protesters, separated from the PEGIDA crowd by police,
chanted "Nazis raus".
The populist right-wing Alternative for Germany party, which polls
show as having 10 percent support ahead of state elections this
year, claimed the violence gave a "taste of the looming
collapse of culture and civilisation".
Playing on popular fears about Europe's migrant influx, the mob
violence threatens to cloud what had been a broadly welcoming mood
in Germany where crowds cheered as Syrian refugees arrived by train
in September.
"Köln has changed everything, people now are doubting,"
said Volker Bouffier, vice president of Merkel's CDU party.
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Asylum seekers among suspects -
It was unclear how many of the suspects had been in Germany long-term
or belonged to a scene of drug dealers and pickpockets known to lurk
around the railway station, and how many were newly-arrived asylum
seekers.
On Friday, the interior ministry said Germany's federal police had
identified 32 suspects, 22 of whom were asylum seekers, in connection
with 76 offences, 12 of which had a sexual nature.
Merkel has so far refused to abandon her welcoming stance towards
war refugees but on Saturday had tough words for law breakers.
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