SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Three days after eight Indian men were attacked, injured and chased through an Eastern German town by a mob while the townsfolk looked on, Germany is worried that this latest incident will hurt its image abroad and scare off foreign investors.
The Indian government has demanded a rigorous investigation into the attack on eight Indian men (more...) by a mob of at least 50 Germans shouting "Foreigners out" in the eastern German town of Mügeln, near the city of Leipzig, on Saturday night.
"We expect the culprits to be caught quickly," India's ambassador to Germany, Meera Shankar, told Berliner Zeitung newspaper. Earlier she asked the German government "to take measures to tackle this issue and prevent such events from occurring in the future," a spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry said.
The attack has triggered fresh public debate about far-right extremism in the formerly communist east of Germany, which has seen a string of racist assaults since unification in 1990. Politicians and business leaders have expressed concern that the country's reputation abroad may have been hurt and that foreign investors be deterred from coming to Germany. After Attack on Indians, Germany Fears For its Reputation (more)
Mark Alexander
