Word: asylums
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...Germany's Social Democrats, at a special party congress in Bonn on right-wing violence. After months of painful argument over its long-standing defense of Germany's liberal immigration policy, the opposition SPD heeded Engholm's call and voted to move the party's position for political asylum closer to that of the ruling center- right coalition. The decision to push for a constitutional amendment to stem the influx of foreigners is based on the belief that reducing the number of asylum seekers will put a firebreak in the path of the xenophobic violence that has torn through...
...easy scapegoat in the 1.4 million refugees from as far away as Afghanistan and as near as Yugoslavia, most of whom have flooded into the country during the past three years. Shut out of much of the rest of the Continent, they gravitate to Germany because its constitution guarantees asylum to all victims of political persecution. Although less than 5% eventually win the right to remain permanently, a laborious processing and appeals system all but assures applicants a stay of a year or more...
...antiforeign assaults mounted, Bonn remained paralyzed by a debate over whether constitutional changes were the solution. Chancellor Helmut Kohl's Christian Democratic Union insisted that an amendment to curtail the right of asylum was the only way to stop racial violence. After much internal strife, the opposition Social Democrats seem ready to agree. But a belated victory for Kohl will not erase suspicions that his government has been more concerned with political gain and bolstering its own appeal to a right-leaning electorate than with law-and-order measures to end the strife in the streets...
...root of the trouble, says Bernd Wagner, a former eastern police official and an expert on right-wing radicalism, is the severe dislocation of eastern society: in addition to unemployment, housing is in short supply, rents have tripled, crime rates have skyrocketed. "To say that solving the asylum problem will solve the far-right problem is complete nonsense," says Wagner...
...since 1990, and three-quarters of those are considered ready to commit violent acts. No sign has been more frightening, though, than the crowds that have cheered on the rioting hooligans. Says sociologist Wolf Lepenies: "I'm not at all surprised that 100 or 200 would attack an asylum house. I'm more worried about the passive...