#hate

Much has been written about #hate on the Internet. Why is it that even a Liberal city councilor from Freiburg wrote on Facebook about brown rats leaving their gutters, referring to the populist movement AfD in Germany? His poisoning remark raised a shitstorm, rightly so.

Freiburg is in turmoil since, on October 16, an early jogger found the corpse of a 19-year-old student who, on her way back from a faculty party, was raped and then drowned in the Dreisam River. The police worked overtime and, on December 3, revealed that the prime suspect was a 17-year-old Afghan boy who had come to Germany as a UMA (unaccompanied underage foreigner). Since then, he has been living with a German foster family.

At the crime scene, the police found the key indicator in a nearby bush: a single 20 cm long multicolored hair. Watching hours of video tapes taken on the streetcar line running nearby, they eventually assigned the hair to the Afghan boy. The matching of the DNA secured at the crime scene makes him the prime suspect in the murder of the student.

Suddenly even tolerant citizens started to blame Chancellor Merkel for her open refugee policy that had spilled 800,000 unchecked persons into Germany in 2015. Only now, our bureaucratic system is coming to grips with the number of refugees stranded in my country. It is estimated that nearly 500,000 persons are not entitled to political asylum, thus living illegally in Germany. Many of those should be extradited. Such expulsion is a lengthy procedure, too long for many of my country fellows.

Here are just three moderate examples of #hate mails in the case of the Freiburg murder sent to the Badische Zeitung, most of them in rudimentary German:

Rapefugeesarenotwelcome!!! Verpisst euch!! (Rapefugees are not welcome!!! Piss off!!)
Dem gehören die Eier ab!!!! (Cut off his balls!!!!)
Ich hoffe das sie dich Tod Schlagen du kleines arschloch!!! (I hope they will beat you to death you little asshole!!!)

The brutal murder and its circumstances pushed Freiburg into the national news. Yesterday night Mayor Dieter Salomon was on the Maybrit Illner talk show. He iterated his position: The committed murder is not worse because the suspect is a refugee. Had it been a German, I would not have been less appalled.

Maybrit Illner is the second lady from the left.
Note the projected "angst" in the background (©ZDF).

Although the topic of the discussion was Refugees under suspicion - the end of Germany's welcoming culture? the debate soon turned to the problem of the repatriation of refugees into so-called safe countries. It happens that according to the German government, Afghanistan is defined as a safe country. So Afghan refugees must return. 

Salomon was right, looking skeptical (©ZDF)

During the talk show host, Maybrit presented a young Afghan man who has lived in Germany over the last five years, speaking German and looking for a job. He is presently in a state of toleration. He may only stay in Germany if he finds an apprenticeship. In fact, his television appearance will be the chance of his life.

If Germany likes to keep the good refugees, how can it get rid of criminals? Countries like Morocco refuse to take those citizens back. Should they be parachuted over the Maghreb?

Today and tomorrow, Salomon is in the Vatican at a summit meeting of 50 European mayors. Their topic: Refugees are our brothers and sisters. Pope Francis will attend the summit on Saturday for three hours, hopefully enlightening those mayors.

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