58% of German protestors have foreign or dual citizenship... “Youth group prone to violence”

(Berlin = Yonhap News) Correspondent Kim Gye-yeon = The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reported on the 9th (local time) that many of those who rioted in Frankfurt after the German youth protests last month were identified as immigrants.

Frankfurt police announced that among the 53 people arrested and detained between the 31st of last month and the morning of the next day, 22 were German nationals, 15 had dual citizenship of Germany and another country, and 16 had only foreign nationalities.

A police spokesman said "a group of violent young people, many of them with an immigrant background", took part in the riots.

At the time, in Frankfurt, after the so-called Generation Z protest, violence and looting broke out on Zeil Street, a shopping district in the city, with rioters throwing Molotov cocktails at police and breaking store windows. More than 180 police officers were injured and five stores, including a gun store, were robbed.

Roman Pozek, Interior Minister of the state of Hesse, where Frankfurt is located, said in a media interview earlier, "I saw the faces of the people holding Molotov cocktails, and they were obviously immigrants. Of those arrested, 80 to 90 percent would be immigrants." This statement sparked controversy as to whether it revealed the authorities' prejudice against immigrants.

However, while disclosing the nationalities of the rioters, the Frankfurt police refuted that 69% of the habitual criminals caught on Zeil Street last year did not have German nationality, and that the same trend was confirmed this time as well.

Frankfurt's city center has already been selected as the area with the worst security in Germany. As mass violence broke out during the protests, the authorities deployed hundreds of additional police officers to constantly check pedestrians and vehicles.

Germany's Federal Office for Discrimination (ADS) considers requests for identification based on appearance, skin color, or ethnic or religious characteristics to be discrimination. However, police said they "will not give up raids just because a target may have an immigration background".