Police should ‘shoot' refugees who enter Germany illegally: Politician

A far-right German politician has sparked outrage for calling on the police to shoot at refugees and migrants entering the country illegally.

Frauke Petry, who heads Alternative for Germany (AfD) the country’s main right-wing anti-immigrant party, said “police must stop migrants crossing illegally from Austria. And, if necessary, use firearms.”

“That is what the law says,” she said in remarks published over the weekend in the Mannheimer Morgen newspaper.

“I don’t want this either, but the use of armed force is there as a last resort,” she added.

The police trade union was quick to shoot down the suggestion, saying that she had a “radical and inhuman” approach and that its officers would never shoot at refugees.

German Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel of the Social Democratic Party, the junior partner in Merkel's left-right grand coalition, meanwhile called on the party to be put under permanent state surveillance saying that it was “unbelievable that such parties are allowed to send out their slogans on public broadcasters”.

But Petry’s comments are just the latest sign of growing frustration at Chancellor Angela Merkel’s policy toward migrants and refugees, some 1.1 million of whom entered Germany last year in a bid to seek asylum.

Support for Merkel's conservative alliance has slumped to its lowest since July 2012 with the AfD soaring, according to a survey released on Sunday.

According to the poll published by the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, public support for Merkel's Christian Democratic Union and sister party Christian Social Union now stands at 34 percent, down two percentage points.

The Social Democratic Party has also lost ground, shedding one percentage point to 24 percent, according to the poll of 1,638 people conducted from January 21 to 27.

AfD, however, scored a record 12 percent, gaining two percentage points on a similar poll published a week ago.

Founded on a Eurosceptic platform, the AfD has gone through a leadership split and veered further to the right, with some of its leaders voicing support for the anti-Islamic PEGIDA protest movement.

Merkel has thus far resisted public pressure, insisting Germany must behave humanely, but on Saturday she made of the firmest statements yet about the new arrivals, saying that she expected most of the refugees from Syria and Iraq to return home once peace has returned.

"We expect that once peace has returned to Syria, once the Islamic State (group) has been defeated in Iraq, that they will return to their countries of origin, armed with the knowledge they acquired with us," Merkel said at a regional gathering of her Christian Democrat (CDU) party in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, according to news agency DPA.

She cited the refugees from former Yugoslavia as an example, saying that 70 percent of those who arrived in Germany in the 1990s returned home once it was safe to do so.

Merkel's open-door policy, while initially winning praise last year, has come under mounting criticism, especially after the German city of Cologne was rocked by a wave of sexual assaults on New Year's Eve blamed on migrants.

On Monday, Germany announced that it had opened its first asylum centre or gay and lesbian refugees, after concerns began to grow for the safety of sexual minorities in overcrowded accommodation.

The new housing in southern Germany's Nuremberg can host up to eight people with four people from Iran, Iraq, Syria and Ethiopia making requests.

"Prejudices don't disappear when one crosses the borders," Michael Glas, who runs an association called Fliederlich that started the initiative told AFP, adding that those who are persecuted in their home countries for being gay are also being targeted in refugee shelters in Germany. 

A large shelter in Berlin, fitted with 120 beds, is expected to open later this month.