Online reports – Marc Schinzel: “Schinzel Pommes”

Solingen: Just concern again?

DThe German city of Solingen is known for its quality knives. Since 2012, it has called itself the “city of blades”. On August 23, a 26-year-old Syrian asylum seeker stabbed visitors to the Solingen city festival with a knife. Three people died and eight were injured, some seriously. The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the murder. It said it had attacked “a gathering of Christians” “as revenge for the Muslims in Palestine and everywhere”.

Die knife attack is a state failure. At the end of 2022, the alleged perpetrator came to Germany from the Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor, an IS stronghold, via Bulgaria. There he applied for asylum with varying reasons (avoiding military service, working to support his parents in Syria). This war was unsuccessful because Bulgaria dominated the war.

EA transfer failed because the Syrian suddenly disappeared. The authorities did not issue a warrant for his arrest. Therefore, the transfer deadline could not be extended. Deportation to Bulgaria was recently no longer possible. Four days after the deadline had passed, the man miraculously reappeared. He was probably counseled. Germany granted him subsidized protection.

Politics fell into its familiar, pathetic rhetoric.

DThe pattern is common: Islamist perpetrators from Afghanistan and Tunisia who murdered 14 people and seriously injured 72 with knives, an axe and a truck between 2016 and 2024 should not have been in Germany.

Die politics fell into its familiar, pathetic rhetoric. “This has no place in our country!” Obviously it does. “Knives in public spaces should be banned!” But the problem is not the knives, but fanatics who stab blindly.

UThe Nazi Asylum Act (AsylG) protects refugees who are exposed to serious disadvantages due to their race, religion, nationality, membership of a social group or political views (Article 3, paragraph 1). It concerns attacks and tangible threats against life and limb, physical freedom and sexual integrity.

Bhe or she is not persecuted, has no right to asylum, even if he or she comes from war zones or countries with precarious economic conditions. For the duration of a serious general threat, in particular during a war or civil war, people can enjoy temporary protection in Switzerland (Art. 4 AsylG). They do not have to do so.

DThe ban on deportation means that people may not be forced to leave for a country where they face persecution (Art. 5 para. 1 AsylG). People who endanger the security of Switzerland or who are classified as dangerous to the public because they have been convicted of a particularly serious crime or offense cannot invoke the ban.

Solingen should be a wake-up call.

Die Switzerland and Germany protect persecuted people. Fanatics who murder without scruples and want to destroy free society have no right to our protection. We must develop screening schemes to prevent them from coming to us. Once they are here, we must do everything we can to deport them after they have served their sentences, even to war zones if necessary.

EStandards are needed to hold those responsible for online platforms accountable when they tolerate the glorification of violence or calls for criminal acts. We must also require Muslim associations and communities to cooperate with the authorities. It is not enough to say that the extremists are not true Muslims. If Islamist hate preachers and influencers succeed in radicalizing and recruiting Muslim youths – mainly online – to murder in the name of Islam, then something is going wrong in the transmission of an appreciative faith.

SOlingen should be a wake-up call. Like Mannheim, Würzburg, Berlin or the knife attack on a Jew in Zurich…

2 September 2024