'Respectable' Germans encourage racism
By Tom Jordan
and Sean Malloy
Members of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democratic Party (SPD) have been accused of assisting racist attacks on immigrants and refugees in Germany by forcing new arrivals to live in squalid conditions.
According to left-wing daily newspaper Die Tageszeitung (TAZ), an SPD media spokesperson of the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state parliament, in Schwerin, said that SPD officials from Rostock municipality, and members of the CDU state government had played an important role in cultivating conditions for right-wing violence against refugee and guest worker hostels in late August.
The mayor of Rostock, the minister of the interior and the police chief of Rostock had admitted to the SPD spokesperson in private conversations that Romanians seeking asylum had been purposely crowded into one hostel where sanitary facilities and room space were insufficient.
According to TAZ, the officials did not want to create conditions that were "too good" for the refugees because they might "get on the phone" to Romania and encourage more refugees to come to Germany.
The SPD is not denying the accusations but criticised the media spokesperson for "washing dirty laundry in public", claiming that he should have raised the issue with SPD leaders rather than go to the press. SPD officials have given the spokesperson a month's "vacation" while they decide what to do.
The press spokesperson said that he isn't sorry for revealing the racist acts, and feels that any Social Democrat or Christian Democrat who has behaved in a racist manner should resign.