Riots in Chemnitz

On August 26, 2018, at about 3 a.m., after the celebration of the city's day, a fight broke out in Chemnitz , in which up to 10 people took part. As a result, a 35-year-old man died from stab wounds, two more aged 33 and 38 years injured ^[1] . The dead turned out to be German Cuban Daniel Hillig ^[2] . Two refugees from Syria and Iraq are suspected of murder, one of whom was already registered with the police and was supposed to be deported ^[3] .

On the day of the murder, two spontaneous rallies took place. One was organized at the site of the murder by the right-wing conservative party "Alternative for Germany" , about 100 people came to it ^[1] . The second is by football fans from the Kaotic Chemnitz club. From 800 to 1000 people ^[1] first rallied on the spot, and then went to the city center. They ignored the police and chanted xenophobic slogans. According to eyewitnesses, the demonstrators began throwing bottles at the police and behaving aggressively towards people whom they considered refugees . The unauthorized rally was attended not only by football fans and neo-Nazis , but also ordinary citizens, outraged that the police did not maintain order in the city.

The next day, August 27, murder suspects were arrested. Already 6,000 people are gathering at the scene, some of them chanting “Wir sind das Volk” (“We are the people” - a political slogan used by members of the German right -wing populist movement PEGIDA ), show a Nazi salute and attack journalists ^[4] . At the same time, more than a thousand people opposed the far right took to the streets. The police hardly managed to separate the protesters, as a result of clashes a total of 20 people were injured ^[4] .

Protests continued in the following days, but on a smaller scale.

On August 26, Twitter user Antifa Zeckenbiss posted a video in which a group of aggressive-minded men approached a young man in jeans who looked like a foreigner and shouted: “Get out!”, “Black-eyed”, “no Welcome!” (“ Welcome "- the motto of German citizens who advocate the reception of refugees) ^[5] . The author of the tweet called what was happening "bullying."

The video received wide publicity in social networks and the media , as well as comments from officials. The reaction was mixed: some criticized, others wrote that it was a fake. Did it give rise to a polemic about what is happening in Chemnitz “bullying” of foreigners or exaggeration and misinformation? It is not known who the author of this video is . The vertical format, jerky movements and image quality indicate that it was shot on a mobile phone. Antifa Zeckenbiss is not the creator: the account regularly publishes videos from different places.

Dresden's attorney general Wolfgang Klein said: “We have no evidence that the video is fake” ^[5] . Police launched an investigation into the incident.

Chancellor Angela Merkel believes that her government has achieved a lot in the migration issue, which proved the support of the population after the tragedy in Chemnitz . However, the head of government acknowledged that the situation in the country is tense ^[6] . She casually mentioned the video , saying: “We saw video frames that show bullying, hatred in the streets. This has nothing to do with our legal state ” ^[7] .

The head of the Saxon government, Michael Kretschmer, criticized the use of tragedy by right-wing extremists, but emphasized, in response to the aforementioned video , that there was no crowd, no pogroms, no persecution in the city ^[8] , which was at odds with the official position of his CDU party , which is headed by Angela Merkel .

The statement of the Federal Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer , who called migration “the mother of all problems”, was widely publicized in the media ^[9] . He added that people's protests are understandable, and this is not a reason to label them as Nazis . Seehofer also believes that politicians should not make sharp condemning statements without having complete and reliable information about what is happening ^[9] .

The most discussed statement, which had serious consequences for the country and political stability in the German government, was the words of the former head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maasen ( CDU ). To journalists' questions about the ambiguous video with “bullying”, he replied that this was “directed misinformation” and that there was no information about “bullying” from the far right ^[10] . After this statement, a political scandal began: both the opposition parties in the Bundestag and the CDU partners in the Big Coalition - members of the SPD party - demanded that Maasen resign for his allegedly politically incorrect statement. As a result of a compromise in the ruling coalition, he was removed from his post to the post of assistant Seehofer , who, meanwhile, actively defended him ^[11] .

The centristist Der Spiegel newspaper from the very beginning lit up the Chemnitz tragedy in neutral colors, with the exception of guest speakers. The articles do not have an unambiguous answer to the question of what happened on the streets of Chemnitz : "bullying" or not. The publication provides a restrained, in some cases, pro-government analytics and a description of what is happening.

Another centrist newspaper, Frankfurter Allgemein Zeitung, wrote that there was still “persecution”, but both from the “left” and “right”: in general, the whole situation in Chemnitz is assessed as a crisis ^[12] .

Der Freitag, a left-wing publication, speaks quite categorically in its articles on ultra-right demonstrators, calling them “bastards” ^[13] . For the authors of the newspaper, the debate about whether there was “bullying” is not the main thing: the events in Chemnitz are unrest and aggression by the ultra-right , and it does not matter what it can be called.

The right-wing conservative newspaper Junge Freiheit publishes articles criticizing the use of the term “bullying” by officials, and also writes about people who hold similar views and supports Maasen and Seehofer , stressing that the dismissal of the former was not the result of politically incorrect, but that his statement was contrary to the opinion of the federal government and Merkel , in particular ^[14] .