A politician from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has said that a migrant who was violent in court should be sent to a “crematorium.”
CDU councillor Jörg Schlechte expressed his rage online at a migrant who threw a dustbin at a presiding judge during a court case. The councillor, who is an elected official in the town of Meissner in Hesse, took to social media after the story broke saying that the asylum seeker should be sent to a crematorium for assaulting the judge reports Hamburger Morgenpost.
The story that provoked the response from the CDU councillor was that of an Eritrean migrant who had been in court for multiple counts of assault, arson and other crimes. The judge in the case was determining whether or not the asylum seeker was fit for trial or whether he should be remanded into psychiatric care.
After the session was over and the judge had decided to keep the man in psychiatric custody, the migrant picked up a nearby wastebasket and threw it at the judge. The basket struck the court official in the head and he had to be taken to the hospital because of his injuries.
Mr. Schlechte shared the article, published by lokalkompass.de, on his Facebook page, commenting: “This man needs to be helped” along with a link to the Meissen crematorium website. The post has since been deleted due to the backlash from social media users, but Facebook page Meissen Watch managed to grab a screenshot of the post before its deletion.
Michael Kretschmer, general secretary for the CDU in Saxony said the remarks were clearly in bad taste. “The attack on a judge must and will have severe consequences,” he said. “The Facebook comment is stupid and an clear provocation that is not appropriate in any way. The local CDU has made this clear to the person concerned, who then deleted the comment.”
The comment is yet another embarrassing moment for the party of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is struggling to maintain unity within her own party and it’s sister party the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU). Frequent election defeats in regional elections, mostly to votes lost to the anti-mass migration Alternative for Germany, has shaken many of the Chancellor’s allies faith in her leadership.
Leader of the CSU Horst Seehofer has distanced himself from Ms. Merkel in recent months, as his party has adopted a tougher stance on migrants, hosting anti-mass migration Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban several times and debating whether or not he will even help campaign with Merkel in next year’s federal election.