German police union chief proposes taking children away from ‘anti-Semitic parents’
Authorities should be allowed to take children away from parents who express anti-Semitic views, the head of Germany’s 2nd largest police union has stated, without elaborating on how or when such measures would be enforced.
“Authorities need to act decisively [against anti-Semitism] including when the aggression comes from migrants,” Rainer Wendt, head of the German Police Union (DPoIG) told Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper on Wednesday.
“If children are raised to become anti-Semites we shouldn't be afraid to take them away from their families.” He went on to accuse many school administrators of ignoring the problem, saying “they act according to the mantra 'it doesn't exist in my school.'”
“There has also been a tendency not to willingly register anti-Semitism by Muslims – but it needs to be recorded without prejudice so that we can develop effective counter-strategies,” Wendt said.
Although Wendt did not specify how exactly he expects it to be determined that parents are anti-Semitic, Josef Schuster, the head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, called last week for a better system to be introduced in schools. He said that teachers and students should have a way to report “anti-Semitic or other acts of violence without bureaucratic hurdles, in order to get a clearer picture of what is going on.”
Wendt’s remarks came just days after Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaker of the Bundestag, said that radical Muslim communities and immigrants with extremist views on Israel are contributing to anti-Semitism in Germany.
It also comes after a Jewish girl in a Berlin primary school was reportedly told by a Muslim classmate that she deserved to be beaten and killed because of her religion, in the third report of anti-Semitism in Berlin schools over the past 12 months. Another Jewish student in Berlin was recently forced to change schools as a result of violent bullying by Muslim classmates, who threatened him with a fake gun.
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The police union chief's remarks come after it was reported that lawmakers from Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and sister party CSU were seeking to adopt measures to deport migrants who express anti-Semitic views in Germany.“Complete acceptance of the Jewish life” is a “criterion for successful integration,” a draft of the proposal said, according to Die Welt.
Germany saw an influx of around one million mainly Muslim migrants at the height of the refugee crisis in 2015. Merkel's open-door policy for those fleeing conflicts and persecution sparked outrage among her critics, who complained about a rise in migrant-related crimes and a strain on the social welfare system.
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