More than 200 rightwing rioters have been arrested after going on an anti-immigrant rampage around the eastern city of Leipzig, erecting barricades and setting a building on fire.

The riot comes in a highly charged atmosphere after a series of sexual assaults on women by gangs of young migrant men on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and other towns, which hardened German public opinion towards Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy. Sporadic attacks on women attributed to migrants were also reported in Austria.

Merkel’s government sought to contain the post-Cologne backlash on Tuesday by detailing plans to accelerate deportations of foreigners found guilty of serious crimes, including physical and sexual assaults. Under current German law, most of the crimes carried probationary sentences and did not necessarily trigger deportation. The plan was laid out by Germany’s conservative interior minister, Thomas de Maizière and its Social Democrat justice minister, Heiko Maas, representing the two wings of Merkel’s coalition.

“We must make sure the law can take effect as soon as possible. First we have to think how to get the parliamentary process going as quickly as possible,” Merkel said.



Explaining the new law to reporters, de Maizière said: “It’s a hard but correct response by the state to those who are seeking protection here, but think they can commit crimes.”

Maas said the proposed law was aimed principally at “victim protection”, adding that it would also serve to protect the “vast majority” of refugees. “They don’t all deserve to be tarred with the same brush as these foreign criminals,” Maas said.

Protesters hold banners at the Pegida march in Leizpig. Photograph: Jens Schlueter/Getty

The ministers conceded that deportation in such cases might not be straightforward, particularly if a convict’s home country was unwilling to accept them or provide them with a passport. The bill has yet to be approved by the full cabinet or parliament.

The police described the Leipzig rioters as mostly football hooligans who had broken away from a march through Leipzig by 2,000 members of Legida, a local branch of the anti-Muslim movement Pegida, demanding that Merkel leave office. The breakaway group carried placards calling for Leipzig to “stay white”. They stormed through a southern district of the city, setting up barricades, smashing windows, letting off fireworks, and setting part of a building on fire.

“The 211 people were to a not insignificant degree already on record as being rightwing sympathisers and/or members of violent sporting groups,” the police said, adding that the riot had been stopped quickly.

Officers put the rightwingers on a bus which was then attacked by leftwing counter-demonstrators. Police also said groups linked to Cologne’s extremist hooligan scene had used social media to assemble in the inner city Sunday evening, and launched a spate of attacks against Pakistani, Syrian and African men.

Maas stressed that there would also be changes to Germany’s sexual offences law, to cover the types of attacks seen in Cologne. In future, sexual assault or rape would be prosecutable “if a woman could not defend herself because an element of surprise has been exploited... or because she didn’t resist due to fear of more violence.”



