Security concerns halt Rostock refugee shelter plans

A series of anti-refugee protests and counter-protests have led authorities in the northeastern city of Rostock to decide against setting up a new refugee home in the local district of Gross Klein.

Rostock's Social Affairs Minister Steffen Bockhahn said it "hurt" to make the decision, but several protests against refugees and incidents in the area had forced him to decide against the new shelter, which was being installed in an empty block of flats.

The decision was immediately condemned by local opposition politicians - not least because a nearby home for unaccompanied underage refugees also had to be partially evacuated only a week earlier.

"I find it questionable if we allow ourselves to be dictated to by right-wingers where refugees are allowed to live and where not," district council chairman Uwe Michaelis told the local "Ostsee Zeitung" newspaper. "They will consider this decision as a victory for them."

Notorious area

Ulrike Seemann-Katz of the local state refugee advisory council agreed that this sent a poor signal. "This is really a huge mistake," she told DW. "The signal means, 'All we need to do is make enough noise or throw enough stones or whatever, and then they'll give up.' And I don't think that's acceptable."

But Seemann-Katz also said that the Gross Klein district had gained a certain notoriety recently. "They might have taken that into consideration from the start and not planned anything there," she said. "But I think that would be wrong too, because I think the whole of society should be prepared to take in refugees. That's what humanity calls for - to offer protection to people searching for protection."

Seemann-Katz went on to suggest that part of the reason for abandoning the plans may not have had anything to do with safety at all. "It's also because there are few refugees coming at the moment, because the borders are closed," she said.

Decision made by Interior Ministry

Rostock's social affairs minister deflected the decision not to create the new home onto Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Interior Minister Lorenz Caffier, implying that he had been overruled: "To me that was an instruction," Bockhahn told "Die Zeit" newspaper. "The interior minister is responsible for security."

District councils receive funding for refugee shelters from the state government, whose Interior Ministry has a say in deciding whether shelters are necessary - but the councils are ultimately responsible.

For its part, the Interior Ministry released a statement insisting that the decision had been made by Bockhahn alone, but added that it shared the security concerns of the local police force. "For that reason the Interior Ministry recommended, on the basis of a police risk assessment commissioned by the social affairs authority in Rostock, to take the unaccompanied underage foreigners out of the facility in Gross Klein, because any conflicts could have endangered the children," the statement read. An Interior Ministry spokeswoman emphasized to DW that Bockhahn alone was responsible for housing refugees, implying that he was "passing the buck" onto the ministry.

Meanwhile the Rostock police said that although there had been a series of protests - both in support of and against refugees - in the district, Gross Klein was not especially noted for xenophobic attacks. According to a police statement, a "spontaneous gathering" of around 60 people in support of refugees had formed on June 2, who were then provoked by around 40 others. Police said the gathering dissolved peacefully.

The police do not release their risk assessments, but a spokeswoman told DW that such incidents had been included in this one, and that protecting the children in the refugee home from potential clashes had been the main concern.

But as far as Seemann-Katz is concerned, security was only one of a number of reasons. "At the moment, the capacities in the homes are free - a lot of capacity is free, because a lot of people are moving away," she said. "The other reason is that we're in an election campaign so to speak - so [Caffier] can't afford a scandal." Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is facing a state parliament election on September 4.

Rostock has an ugly reputation in Germany because of a notorious incident in 1992, when an asylum seekers' home was besieged and set alight by an angry mob with over a hundred Vietnamese people and a TV camera crew inside.

New figures released on Wednesday show that there have been 665 crimes targeting refugee homes in Germany this year.