Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has held what it calls a “memorial” rally for the victims of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market that has inflamed debate on migrant and security policy.
The rally was held on Monday outside a cathedral in the eastern city of Magdeburg, the scene of last week’s attack that killed five people and left more than 200 others wounded.
“Terror has arrived in our city,” said the AfD’s leader in Saxony-Anhalt state, Jan Wenzel Schmidt, condemning what he labelled the “monstrous political failure” that led up to the attack, for which a Saudi Arabian citizen was arrested.
“We must close the borders,” he told hundreds of supporters of the anti-immigration party. “We can no longer take in madmen from all over the world.”
The party’s co-leader Alice Weidel described the attack as “an act of an Islamist full of hatred for what constitutes human cohesion … for us Germans, for us Christians”.
She demanded “change so we can finally live in security again”, as people in the crowd chanted: “Deport, deport, deport!”
The suspect, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, faces numerous charges, including murder and attempted murder. He has lived in Germany since 2006 and has previously made anti-migrant and anti-Islam posts on social media, according to reports.
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