Germany Interior Ministry rejects notion of racial profiling
Germany’s Interior Ministry has rejected the idea that police are resorting to racial profiling in the expanded controls at the German borders — specifically checking people because of a perceived foreign appearance.
A ministry spokeswoman stressed on Monday in Berlin that “a racially motivated implementation of police measures would be completely unacceptable and also illegal.”
Racial profiling is “a particularly despicable form of discrimination that stigmatizes the people affected and can seriously damage their self-esteem,” the spokeswoman continued.
Such an approach could “lead to alienation in the relationship with the security authorities,” which the police want to avoid.
“We want people to be able to trust the security authorities.” The police, she said, had other criteria at their disposal.
Delivery vans in particular were being targeted because they are so often used by smugglers. “That has relatively little to do with the driver,” she said. Other criteria concern certain “locations, time periods, age structures or even conspicuous behavior.”
How are the new controls being carried out?
Speaking from a checkpoint on the border with France near the city of Saarbrücken, DW’s Lucia Schulten explained how some of the controls appeared.
“Cars slow down and when the police officers decide to check one car they pull over here to the side and they have to drive in front of the police station where their papers are checked,” she said.
“Since we’ve been standing here we’ve seen one of these long-distance buses being checked. Police went in there and checked the papers of everyone sitting in there and they also took one man out who had to go into the police station.”
Schulten explained that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been speaking to other European leaders over the weekend, with some expressing their concern about the checks.
“A lot will probably depend on what these checks will look like and what they will mean for the free movement of persons and goods within the European Union and if this will be a hindrance to them or not.” German police union head says not all vehicles can be checked
Andreas Rosskopf, the head of Germany’s Federal Police Union, has told the broadcaster RBB24 Inforadio that anyone crossing the border into Germany should now expect to be checked.
He nevertheless acknowledged that given the length of the country’s borders, police realistically won’t be able to stop every vehicle.
Germany has 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) on its western border, in addition to the 2,400 kilometers along its eastern and southern borders where the checks had already been taking place, he told the station on Monday morning.
Rosskopf said that “given the length of the border, permanent and intensive checks are not possible.”
“It remains to be seen how successful it will be in curbing migration and people smuggling,” he said in the Monday morning interview.
Three arrested over cannabis possession after evading border check
German police arrested three men traveling with hashish in the trunk of their car, as Berlin introduced the new border checks.
A spokesman said the three had evaded a checkpoint on the A30 highway near the town of Bad Bentheim as they entered the German state of Lower Saxony from the Netherlands.
They did cross the border, but were stopped near the town of Rheine, about 30 kilometers (roughly 19 miles) east in the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The three were said to all be under investigation on Monday morning in connection with the cannabis haul.
The new checks are at crossings with Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.
Controls already existed on Germany’s borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland.
