BERLIN (AP) — The German government launched new legislation Wednesday to facilitate the deportation of foreigners who publicly condone terrorist acts. According to the law, a single comment on social media can be grounds for kicking people out.
The measure approved by the cabinet was promised by the Chancellor Olaf Scholz following a knife attack last month on members of a group describing themselves as opponents of “political Islam”, which left a police officer dead. It comes as Scholz’s government faces broader pressure to curb migration.
The Interior Ministry said the law on residency will be amended so that endorsing or promoting “a single terrorist crime” is grounds for a “particularly serious interest in deportation.” This means that in the future, a single comment that “glorifies and endorses a terrorist crime on social media” could constitute grounds for deportation.
Anyone who publicly condones a crime “in a manner calculated to cause a disturbance of the public peace” may also be deported, and a conviction is not required. Liking a post on social media would not be sufficient reason for deportation, the Home Office said. Minister Nancy Faeser said this.
Faeser said that Hamas’s actions during the October 7 attack on Israel have been celebrated “in a disgusting way” on social media in Germany, and that the attack in Mannheim “was also glorified by many on the net in the most horrible way.” ”
“Such brutalization online fuels a climate of violence that could encourage extremists to commit new acts of violence,” Faeser added. “So it is very clear to me that Islamic agitators who mentally live in the Stone Age have no place in our country. Anyone who does not have a German passport and who glorifies terrorist acts here should be deported and deported wherever possible.”
She said she was confident lawmakers will approve the change soon, and that she did not see it would violate free speech laws.
The government is under constant pressure to reduce the number of migrants coming to and staying in Germany. Earlier this year, lawmakers passed legislation intended to ease the deportations of failed asylum seekers.
At the same time, Scholz’s socially liberal administration is relaxing the rules for obtaining citizenship and ending restrictions on having dual nationality. It says the plan will promote the integration of immigrants and help attract skilled workers, while opposition conservatives have argued it makes German citizenship cheaper.
Faeser defended the new naturalization law, which comes into effect on Thursday.
The legislation stipulates that people who become naturalized must be able to support themselves and their family members. The existing law requires potential citizens to commit themselves to the “free democratic fundamental order,” and the new version specifies that anti-Semitic and racist acts are incompatible with it.
The government has said that issues such as anti-Semitism, Israel’s right to exist and Jewish life in Germany will be given greater weight in the citizenship test that applicants must undergo.
Faeser said that by this measure we have “made it more difficult to obtain German citizenship.”
