A German Jewish leader defended Germany’s interior minister against charges of fear mongering.
The interior minister, Wolfgang Schauble, has been accused of using fear to erode democratic freedoms, but Stefan Kramer, general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, wrote in an open letter to the Die Welt newspaper that Germany faces real dangers from Islamic terrorism. “As a representative of the Jewish community, and thus as a member of one target group,” Kramer said he was “especially aware of the danger.”
Schauble, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party, recently proposed the internment of terror suspects without trial, and targeted assassinations of terror suspects, even those abroad. He unveiled these proposals in a recent article in Der Spiegel magazine. The remarks drew immediate condemnation from members of other mainstream parties.
On Sunday, German President Horst Koehler criticized Schauble’s proposals as rash and said the interior minister should not spark panic among Germans. Kramer said Schauble has managed to give Germans a sense of security without creating panic, writing that the preventive measures Schäuble has instituted have resulted in improved security.
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