The number of politically motivated crimes increased again in Germany in 2022 by more than 7% to 58,916 crimes, which is a new all-time high since this figure was introduced in the statistics in 2001. Furthermore, the number of politically motivated violent crimes also increased by 4% to 4,043 crimes.

The data were presented in a report in early May by German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. According to the minister, of particular concern is the sharp increase in attacks against refugees, which rose by 9% during 2022, highlighting that right-wing extremism continues to present a particularly high risk.

According to the document submitted by the German government, neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists committed 1,170 violent attacks in 2022 against immigrants, refugees and political opponents. At least 675 people were injured in these attacks.

German police also recorded 5,372 xenophobic incidents, 2,641 anti-Semitic crimes and 610 Islamophobic hate crimes. In these events, some 62 mosques were attacked between January and December last year, and at least 39 people were injured as a result of anti-Muslim violence, according to official data.

Germany has witnessed increasing racism in recent years, fuelled by the propaganda of far-right groups and parties, which have taken advantage of the refugee crisis and tried to fuel fear of immigrants. Faced with this situation, the government proposes a two-pronged solution to extremism: prevention and rigour. They also advocate well-equipped security agencies, consistent law enforcement, political education, strong civil society and urgent tightening of gun laws.

The threat of Islamist terrorism remains quite high. After the Castrop-Rauxel case in early January, the second suspected Islamist attack this year 2023 in Hamburg was recently prevented.

At the same time, climate protests during 2022 have become a clear focus of crime from the left field, when 1,585 were recorded. This corresponds to approximately a doubling with respect to the year 2021.

Likewise, 206 crimes in the field of misogyny and 417 in the field of gender diversity were reported to the Federal Criminal Police Office. It should also be noted that the so-called new thematic areas were created during 2020 in order to better record the different phenomena.

For example, the thematic area called “gender and sexual identity”, which registered 340 crimes during 2021, experienced an increase of more than 42% for violent crimes in 2022. Another area recently created is in the field of sexual orientation, where homophobic crimes are recorded. There was a 15% increase in cases in 2022, to 1,005 cases, although the police forces believe that in these areas there is a particularly high number of crimes not reported or notified.

_____

Aquest apunt en català / Esta entrada en español / Post en français