Angela Merkel Booed By Anti-Immigration Protesters During Refugee Visit

It wasn’t until Monday, after #Merkelschweigt – translated roughly as “Merkel stays silent” – became the top trending hashtag on Twitter in Germany, that the chancellor condemned the attacks through a spokesman.

While most Germans have been welcoming to the refugees, a minority has vocally opposed them.

Some of the protesters booed Merkel while others shouted “traitor”.

Following the announcement last week that Germany was expecting to receive at least 800,000 refugees this year, attacks against refugee shelters which were already high, have intensified, particularly in the east of the country.

The attacks against refugees, which has nearly doubled to 202 in the first half of 2015, is also seen as intimately tied with Islamophobia, according to political analysts.

The same night, a man threw a burning object at a planned home for 56 refugees in Leipzig.

She urged for more solidarity with refugees who take shelter in Germany.

But as a result of the weekend violence, the name of Heidenau is now added to the list of towns in Germany that has been the focus of racist outrages against foreigners over the course of the last two decades.

State and regional governments in Germany have been complaining about the additional pressure on their budgets caused by the record number of refugees.

Speaking to reporters after meeting aid workers, local officials and some of the 560 refugees at the site, Merkel praised those “who have to endure hatred”. “When I saw those bad people I was very sad, but we also see good people too”, he said.

This commonly-held belief among Germans was recently expressed publicly when 25,000 people marched across the city of Dresden in protest against Muslim immigrants in January.

“These questions will occupy us a lot more than Greece and the stability of the euro”, Merkel said in a recent television interview. There are moments in our European history when we face an exceptional situation.

Numerous refugees arriving in Germany are fleeing violence in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Eritrea, but over a third are from European countries like Albania and Serbia.

“We need to send those who are highly unlikely to get asylum back home”.

Hollande and Merkel are pushing the rapid establishment of reception centres in overwhelmed Greece and Italy to help identify asylum-seekers and economic migrants.

Merkel and Hollande sought a joint position for tackling the crisis, saying the burden of aiding refugees needs to be shared fairly among the 28 EU countries.

But SPD Secretary General Yasmin Fahimi says they have received many threats from right-wing extremists after the party chairman and Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel visited Heidenau on Monday. “This is not the Germany we want”.

“Asking Greece and Italy to do their duty on immigration is like asking a country hit by floods to step up the production of umbrellas”, Gentiloni said.