It begins with a sentence as simple as it is cutting: "The circumstances surrounding the entry of the 3 Somalis and the role of left-wing NGOs like Pro Asyl must be clarified." Spoken by Alice Weidel, parliamentary group leader of the AfD, and carried by the undertone of a politics that does not seek to clarify but to indict. Not to ask, but to dictate. What at first glance appears to be a call for transparency reveals itself in context as part of a broader attack: on the right to asylum, on the rule of law, on a society that wants to be more than just a defensive reflex.
Weidel is not alone. The German Police Union (DPolG), a body that has long distanced itself from the image of a moderate workers' association, files a criminal complaint. The suspicion: smuggling of foreigners, aiding and abetting illegal entry, forgery of documents. The targets: unnamed individuals, but by name, Pro Asyl – that organization which for decades has documented, accompanied, and provided legal protection. The complaint relies on nothing more than assumptions and insinuations – a process reminiscent of authoritarian conditions, not of constitutional culture. It is this deliberate shift in terminology that Weidel and her allies employ. Not the causes of flight are at the center, but the flight itself. Not the reasons that drive someone to leave Somalia – hunger, terror, lawlessness – but the cellphone that was handed out to someone in Poland. Not the legal obligation to examine an asylum application, but the assertion that NGOs operate a smuggling network. It is a mindset that considers humanity suspicious and law a weakness.
And then comes the second sentence, no less telling: "In the USA, Merz rightly states that rampant anti-Semitism is linked to migration policy." This sentence, too, comes from Alice Weidel. And it, too, does not aim at insight but at framing. Migration becomes a code, a cipher for everything threatening, foreign, dark. Anti-Semitism, cultivated in Europe for centuries, is suddenly "imported." The responsibility of the majority society? Outsourced. The Shoah? A shadow from the past now turned into a projection surface for creating new scapegoats. What resonates in both statements is a democratic bankruptcy. Not in an institutional sense, but in a deeper cultural one: the refusal to allow complexity. The aversion to nuance. The desire for simplistic blame. Those who label Pro Asyl as "part of a smuggling ring," who criminalize refugees merely for fleeing, who criticize courts for upholding constitutional law – they are not on the margins of democratic discourse, they seek to dismantle that discourse itself.
Particularly concerning: the DPolG, which presents itself in this constellation as the extended arm of a radicalized domestic policy. It does not simply file a complaint. It sows distrust, marks civil society actors, lends right-wing narratives a veneer of institutional seriousness. And it does so in a climate where authoritarian longings flourish, where the police increasingly become a projection surface for a populist security discourse. A union that behaves this way has long lost its claim to neutrality. It does not defend the constitution – it narrows it. And one could – should – recall: Article 1 of the Basic Law, the Geneva Refugee Convention, the rulings of administrative courts that repeatedly reprimand the behavior of German authorities toward asylum seekers. One could point out that Somalia is among the most dangerous countries in the world, that people there flee from hunger, militias, sexual violence. One could explain that using smugglers is not a crime, but often the only way out in a world without legal escape routes. One could – but one would have to agree that human dignity is non-negotiable.
What remains is a picture of exhaustion: a state allowing itself to be radicalized from the right, a public discourse under permanent fire, a society that must decide what it wants to tolerate. The attack on the three Somalis, on Pro Asyl, on the right to asylum itself is more than a political incident. It is a test case for the moral immune system of this country. And the question it raises is both simple and profound: Who are we if we allow refugees to become suspects simply because they seek protection? If we remain silent while the language of exclusion once again becomes the tone of politics? If we accept that a few tweets are enough to call entire human rights into question?
Who flees is not a criminal. But those who make it one reveal what truly bothers them: Not the how of entry. But the that someone comes at all – someone they had not planned for.
Welcome to a country that must decide. Between fear and justice. Between Weidel and dignity.
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