MANNHEIM, Germany — The leafy Market Square, lined with Middle Eastern restaurants in a sleepy town where nearly half the residents have immigrant backgrounds, would seem the last place to spark Germany’s latest explosive wave of nationalist revulsion.
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Yet it was in Mannheim where prosecutors say an Afghan man stabbed six people in May at an anti-Islam rally, killing a police officer. No motive had been determined. But the death and the fact that the accused man’s asylum application had been denied years ago sparked calls for the expulsion of some refugees. Such sentiments were once seen as messages reserved mostly for the far right.
The fact that this happened in Mannheim, a community of more than 300,000 inhabitants, has shocked Germany. It has been particularly painful for the city’s Muslim population, where, according to estimates, almost one in five people has Turkish ancestry.
Days after the death of police officer Rouven Laur, 29, Mannheim became a focal point for a flood of anti-immigrant proposals — some of them once relegated to the far right.
Some of the city’s squares were overrun by protests by both the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, party and counter-protests. The AfD felt emboldened by the fact that its hard-line stance was being adopted by its enemies, including the chancellor, many in attendance said.
From her office window overlooking the Market Square where the attack took place, Semra Baysal-Fabricius, a lawyer, said she watched in horror at the repercussions of that day in May.
The man accused of the attack, whom police named Sulaiman A., 25, was shot by police. After several weeks, he was transferred from the hospital to jail.
Baysal-Fabricius now fears for her 14-year-old son, who is German. She worries that he will become a target because of his dark features.
“There has always been this debate about migration,” he said. “Now we have the feeling that the whole debate is changing because of things like this.”
Sulaiman A. came to Germany in 2014 seeking asylum, a request that was rejected, authorities said. He married a German citizen with whom he had two children, giving him the right to remain in the country but not citizenship.
The German government has long refused to return refugees to certain countries deemed too dangerous even when their asylum applications were unsuccessful.
Following the events in Mannheim, a growing chorus of calls has welcomed the possibility of deporting those who fail the asylum test.
Last year, refugees, who make up less than 4 percent of the population, were responsible for about 7 percent of the country’s crimes, many of them minor offenses, according to federal police.
Asylum seekers are responsible for around 10 percent of “crimes against life,” which include murder but also illegal abortions. However, attacks perpetrated by them often receive disproportionate attention.
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