The contractor has employees from Cambodia, Kenya and Cameroon. “When he thought of Saxony, however, pictures of racist attacks, of burning refugees’ accommodation, of passers-by who would not intervene against angry racist masses incited by politicians”, German weekly Junge Freiheit noted.
The restaurateur had previously been invited by the Zwickau Events company Polar1 to a street food market in Plauen. Florian Freitag, Managing Director, received a cancellation from Hagemeyer. “You may think this is exaggerated, we just do not want to take over the responsibility,” added the Cologne caterer, who had previously worked as a press photographer.
He told the newspaper that he also knew of xenophobia from Cologne, but “here one can always rely on passers-by to intervene”. He called on his colleagues to avoid Saxony in general.
“In this sense, street food does not belong in Saxony. We are faced with the fact that Saxony is not a cosmopolitan place, whereas around the country, asylum accomodations are continually being burned with the applause by the neighbours. A boycott of these regions is surely the better means of combating abuses,” Hagemeyer said.
Markus Ulbig, the Saxon Minister of the Interior for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, noted however that 169 sexual offences had been committed by migrants in 2016. This was compared with only 25 similar cases the previous year in Saxony, reported German newspaper Bild.
According to Ulbig, “almost three quarters of all Algerian immigrants have popped up as suspects”. Of the 7 579 crimes committed by migrants, most of them were theft, robbery and bodily harm. Saxony is also home to the Pegida movement.
“Eastern states are bad states for refugees. It’s hard to find apartments. There are no jobs and no contact with locals,” said Mohammed Alkhodari, a dental hygienist who desperately wants to move to the western part Germany.
Erdmute Gustke, pastor at a church in Heidenau – a Saxony village also hit by anti-refugee rallies – told thelocal.de that the migrant influx was not popular. Non-German crime suspects committed 2 512 rapes and sexual assaults in Germany in 2016 — an average of seven a day.
Although Berlin was the German city most affected by non-German criminality, Cologne remains in the top five.