Despite requests from opposition parties, the police refuse to disclose the names of the suspects in the New Year's Eve street riots, which left scores of people injured – clearly because they want to cover up migrant crime, the opposition says. Earlier, the background of the perpetrators had also been concealed after knifing incidents.

A week on from the New Year’s Eve riots in Germany, tensions are still high regarding the incidents, as it has come to light that the vast majority of the perpetrators are people with a migrant background. All eyes are on the capital, as Berlin has seen the worst riots: 41 police officers were injured, some of them seriously. Due to the enormous pressure, the interior minister has been forced to talk about migration in official communications. It is not right to hide the fact that many of the attackers are immigrants, she said.

However, this was already a misrepresentation on the minister’s part. According to official information, there is a total of 145 suspects on the police list after the riots, representing 18 different nationalities. The largest numbers of the individuals arrested were Afghans (27), Syrians (21) and Germans (45), but there were also Jordanians, Nigerians, Sudanese, Serbs, Turks, Romanians and Italians.

As it turned out, 11 of the 45 „Germans” were actually dual nationals, but only their German citizenship was officially disclosed by the police. There are Turks, Lebanese, Tunisians and Syrians among them. Listing suspects with dual citizenship as „Germans” in the crime statistics of Berlin and all other federal states is a common practice by the authorities.

The newspaper Junge Freiheit has found that at least 111 of the 145 suspects are of foreign origin, a fact that has been noted by several opposition parties. The parliamentary group of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Berlin requested the police to reveal the first names of the suspects, but to no avail. Group leader Kai Wegner said the government should also learn from previous years.

„What we need now are concrete proposals and actions. Offenders must feel the full force of the rule of law. This includes strong penalties following fast-track procedures. The message must be that it may not happen in our constitutional state,”

Mr Wegner said in a statement, pointing out that police and firefighters are almost helpless during such street riots.

„A strong state also needs well-equipped police and security authorities. No one understands why Berlin’s police and firefighters are still not equipped with the necessary technology, such as body cams, throughout the city. Especially not after this New Year’s Eve, when the attacks could have been documented for the court trials,”

the group leader stressed, promising that they would demand all questions to be answered at Monday’s meeting of the Internal Affairs Committee. According to the party, the Senate has been limiting the powers and the deployment options of the police for years for political reasons, at least according to a post on Twitter by CDU party leader Friedrich Merz.

„Die Chaoten, die meisten mit ‚Migrationshintergrund’, fordern mit ihrer Randale den Staat heraus, den sie verachten. Und #Berlin wird mit der Lage nicht fertig, weil der Senat aus politischen Motiven seit Jahren Rechte und Einsatzmöglichkeiten der Polizei begrenzt.“ ™

— Friedrich Merz (@_FriedrichMerz) January 5, 2023

The right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has also voiced its opinion on the fact that the Interior Ministry is trying to hide the background of the perpetrators. Problems can only be solved if they are specifically named, without evading anything, the party says.

„Young men with migrant background, who fail to integrate, have been a serious challenge to our society for years. It’s time to openly name and, above all, solve this problem, which is not only present on New Year’s Eve and in Germany. Whether it’s disturbances at swimming pools or knife attacks in the streets, young migrants who reject our values and despise our society are emerging over and over again as perpetrators,”

AfD politician Stephan Brandner pointed out. Authorities being instructed not to reveal the first names of the perpetrators is nothing new. AfD had previously asked similar questions regarding knifing incidents, but their inquiries were rejected each time.