Schuster Interior Ministers' Conference satisfied

Saxony's Interior Minister Armin Schuster (CDU) has hailed the results of the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) as a success. In his assessment on Friday, he referred in particular to the initiatives that the Free State brought to the meeting in Berlin. They concerned a tightening of the deportation and repatriation of foreign criminals, an extension of stationary border controls as well as better protection for public officials and elected representatives and data retention to prevent attacks.

"Crimes such as incitement to hatred or the burning of flags of other countries must not remain without consequences and must lead to the deportation of foreigners. The Conference of Interior Ministers reaffirms that it will exhaust all legal possibilities to ban statements, symbols, motifs or calls that are directed against the security or even the existence of the state of Israel," explained Schuster. Especially since the attack on Israel, there have been repeated intolerable acts of solidarity with Hamas in German cities.

"It must be possible to deport dangerous individuals who want to carry out terrorist attacks in Germany or people who continue to commit serious crimes to their countries of origin," demanded Schuster. The IMK had unequivocally called on the federal government to allow deportations and controlled departures for this group of people to their countries of origin, Syria and Afghanistan.

The CDU politician once again spoke out in favor of data retention. "Time and again, we receive last-minute information from abroad that helps us to arrest terrorists and prevent attacks in Germany - only very rarely can German authorities obtain this information themselves." For this purpose, measures such as telecommunication surveillance or online searches are necessary, but data retention also plays a decisive role in identifying perpetrators and their preparatory acts.

"It is ambiguous to do without these necessary instruments in Germany, but at the same time hope to receive the knowledge gained through the use of such instruments from other countries," emphasized Schuster. That is why the Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser (SPD), has once again been called upon to make the most effective use possible of the regulatory leeway identified by the European Court of Justice. "We need a legal obligation to store IP addresses and port numbers. This data retention would also make a decisive contribution to combating the abuse of children."