200 arrested as anti-refugee right-wingers rampage through German city

More than 200 masked right-wing supporters, carrying placards with racist overtones, went on a rampage in the eastern city of Leipzig on Monday night, throwing fireworks, breaking windows and vandalising buildings, police said. As roughly 2,000 anti-Muslim “LEGIDA” protesters marched peacefully in the city centre, police said a separate group of 211 people walked through the the southern Connewitz district before turning to violence. Witnesses said they were targeting ethnic restaurants and businesses. The top floor of one building caught fire.

The 211 people were to a not insignificant degree already on record as being right-wing sympathisers and or members of violent sporting groups.

Police spokesman

The group carried a placard reading “Leipzig bleibt Helle”, or “Leipzig stays light”, an apparent reference to the skin colour of residents. Emotions are running high in German cities after gangs of young migrant men sexually assaulted women at New Year in mass attacks in Cologne and other towns. The attacks have deepened public scepticism towards Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy and her mantra that Germany can cope with the 1.1 million migrants who arrived in the country last year. It has also fuelled right-wing groups.

Politics Leipzig