GERMANY –  Angela Merkel has condemned the outbreak of far-right protests in eastern Germany, telling the Bundestag in an unusually passionate address that shouting Nazi slogans and committing acts of violence are inexcusable.

The German chancellor was heckled during a lively Bundestag debate by the head of the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD), Alexander Gauland, who accused her of dividing Germany with her immigration policy, endangering peace and spreading fake news by supporting controversial evidence that far-right protesters were hounding foreigners through the streets. In response, Merkel told Gauland that while she acknowledged the anger felt after the death of a man in Chemnitz who was allegedly stabbed by two asylum seekers, “there is no excuse or explanation for rabble-rousing, in some cases the use of violence, Nazi slogans, hostility towards people who look different, to the owner of a Jewish restaurant, attacking police”.

Merkel also responded to the row gripping Germany over Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of the BfV domestic intelligence agency, who questioned the use of the word “Hetzjagd” meaning hunting by Merkel’s spokesman to describe what happened to foreign people in Chemnitz.(The Guardian)…[+]