People look at the burnt-out roof truss of a former hotel that was under reconstruction to become a home for asylum seekers on February 21, 2016 in Bautzen east of Dresden, eastern Germany – dpa/AFP / Christian Essler
BERLIN: Shocked German officials on Sunday condemned two “disgusting” incidents involving anti-migrant mobs in the ex-communist east of the country, including a crowd cheering a blaze at a planned refugee shelter.
A group of 20-30 apparently drunken onlookers applauded as fire took hold in a former hotel being converted into home for asylum seekers in the town of Bautzen in Saxony state overnight. Police suspected arson and traces of fire accelerant were found.
Some members of the group tried to impede the work of firefighters dispatched to the scene, police said.
A police spokesman said that the group showed “unabashed delight” at the blaze and made “disparaging comments” about the efforts to contain it.
No one was hurt in the incident. Two 20-year-old men were temporarily detained for defying police orders.
The events came two nights after 100 people in the Saxony town of Clausnitz tried to block the arrival of a bus carrying about 20 asylum seekers to a new shelter.
The scenes, captured on video, show the mob angrily shouting “We are the people”, borrowing the pro-democracy slogan from the peaceful revolution that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
The images, which have gone viral on social media, show police officers dragging terrified refugees out of the coach, including a teenage boy reportedly from Lebanon.
Police chief Uwe Reissmann sparked further outrage when he gave the migrants themselves partial blame for the fraught scene, noting that some had filmed the mob with their mobile phones and made obscene gestures at them.
He said he had not ruled out criminal charges against the protesters or the migrants.
‘Something very wrong’
Members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s left-right “grand coalition” government, which has come under increasing pressure over its liberal stance on asylum, expressed outrage at the incidents.
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