The killing of a police officer by an Afghan-born Islamist in Mannheim, southern Germany, has led politicians to call for knives to be banned in public places.
Germans were outraged after a 29-year-old officer succumbed to wounds inflicted by a Muslim extremist who had attempted to murder anti-Islamism activist and journalist Michael Stürzenberger at a public rally on May 31st.
Six people were injured in the Islamist stabbing spree at the rally in Mannheim’s central square, which ironically was about the dangers posed by political Islam to German society. The attacker was a 25-year-old Afghan failed asylum seeker who had been living in Germany since 2014.
That attack was followed by another incident in Mannheim on Tuesday evening when local AfD candidate Heinrich Koch was stabbed by people he identified as left-wing extremists. He was left hospitalised with stab wounds to his abdomen.
In response to the high-profile acts of political violence, politicians from both the left and centre-right have called for stricter controls on the possession of knives in public. Andrea Lindholz, an MP for the Bavarian-based centre-right CSU said blades should be banned from places with large crowds.
“Nobody needs knives there that can cause serious injuries,” Lindholz said, adding that “carrying knives ready for use in such problematic places should generally be prohibited.”
Lindholz was joined in her call by policing unions Germany’s left-wing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has also previously called for ‘knife-free zones’ on public transport due to a sharp rise in knife attacks.
However, Germany already has strict regulations on carrying knives in public with blades over 12 cm banned except in certain circumstances under the country’s criminal law codes.
Despite efforts by some officials to downplay the Islamist motives behind the Mannheim attack, including German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann’s tweet, “Islam belongs to Germany,” posted just hours after the officer’s murder, even centre-right CDU politicians voiced their support for the deportation of criminal foreigners.
Official statistics show an average of 60 knife attacks per day in Germany in 2022 alone. The country has struggled with rising migrant crime, particularly from young male Afghans who have entered the country en masse in recent years.
Migrant crime is a key issue for voters heading to the polls for the European elections this weekend. Opinion polls suggest the right-wing AfD could achieve their best result so far.
