German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed over migration policy

ANALYSIS: Enemies of German Chancellor Angela Merkel have seized on concerns about her ‘open-door’ migration policy following the Berlin truck attack.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing her greatest electoral test as public concern over her liberal asylum seeker policies rises in tandem with the number of terror attacks. Picture: Hannibal Hanschke/Pool Photo via AP

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ANGELA Merkel, the German chancellor and most powerful political figure in Europe, is facing her greatest electoral test as public concern over her liberal asylum seeker policies rises in tandem with the number of terror attacks.

Ahead of next year’s election, Ms Merkel’s enemies have seized on concerns about any links between mass migration of Muslim citizens and the number of attacks carried out by a small number of Islamist extremists.

Monday night’s murder of 12 people at a Christmas market is being used as further evidence of the risk, although the original suspect, 23-year-old Pakistani asylum seeker Naved Baluch, has now been released due to a lack of evidence.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been criticised over her ‘open-door’ migration policy. Picture: Maurizio Gambarini/dpa via AP

Ms Merkel had already begun retreating from her earlier policies and told her centre-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany earlier this month that she would “never again’’ consider an “open-door’’ policy that allowed one million people into Germany in 2015 in a largely uncontrolled migration wave.

Her political enemies have seized on Monday’s attack to further condemn her, and Netherlands hard-Right MP Geert Wilders, who is leading in the polls in his country, spread a photoshopped political cartoon of Ms Merkel with blood on her hands.

In Germany, anti-immigration MP Marcus Pretzell, from the Alternative for Germany party, blamed Ms Merkel directly for the deaths at the market, describing the 12 victims as “Merkel’s dead’’.

“When will the German state of law strike back,’’ he asked on social media platform Twitter. “When will this cursed hypocrisy finally stop? These are Merkel’s dead! #Nice #Berlin.’’

Wann schlägt der deutsche Rechtsstaat zurück? Wann hört diese verfluchte Heuchelei endlich auf? Es sind Merkels Tote!#Nizza#Berlin

— Marcus Pretzell (@MarcusPretzell) December 19, 2016

The streets around the scene of the market attack have become a makeshift shrine of flowers and candles, but one sign photographed by News Corp Australia carried a plea and a warning. “You don’t change anything by this horrible act!’’ It read.

“We accept your religion, accept our religion! Because this is our country.’’

The Alternative for Germany party is tracking at only 10 per cent in the national polls but have had success in local and regional elections.

Berlin Mayor Michael Mueller, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere and German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier lay flowers at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the Berlin attack. Picture: AFP

Germany goes to an election in October with Ms Merkel’s enemies attacking her migration policies, highlighting terror attacks committed by asylum seekers this year, including a stabbing by a Syrian asylum seeker, which killed one and injured five, an axe attack on a train by an Afghani asylum seeker which injured five people, and the detonation of a bomb outside a wine bar by a Syrian refugee which injured 15 people.

Ms Merkel on Monday conceded it would be particularly “repugnant’’ if the attacker turned out to be an asylum seeker.

“It would be very difficult for us to learn that a human being committed this deed who came to Germany to ask for refuge and asylum,” she said.

Alternative for Germany leader Frauke Petry, directly linked terror attacks with Ms Merkel’s migration policies.

“We cannot be under any illusion,” she said in a statement.

“The milieu in which such crimes are able to thrive has been imported here systematically.’’

Originally published as German Chancellor Angela Merkel slammed over migration policy