(Reuters) German Chancellor Angela Merkel rebuffed comments from a conservative ally on Wednesday who had played down violence at far-right protests last week and said images of the event showed innocent people being persecuted.
Germany has been shaken by the most violent right-wing protests in decades after the fatal stabbing of a German man in the city of Chemnitz in the state of Saxony on Aug. 26, for which two immigrants were arrested.
The Saxony government, in particular, has drawn accusations of ignoring the problem of far-right radicalism for years and conservative state premier Michael Kretschmer courted controversy on Wednesday by denying migrants had been hounded.
“There was no mob, there was no hunting down of people, there was no pogrom in this city,” he told the state assembly.
