According to the Ministry of the Interior, 83 of 100 suspects of the Stuttgart riot night have a ” proven migration background”. “Of these, 49 have German and 34 have foreign citizenship,” according to a recently published response by the ministry to an application by the AfD party in the Baden-Württemberg state parliament. In the police statistics, persons who have both German and another nationality would be registered as Germans. According to the information provided, this applies to 20 suspects.As a ministry spokesman said in Stuttgart on Thursday, the definition of migration background is the same as that of the Federal Statistical Office. According to this definition, a person has a migration background “if he or she or at least one parent does not possess German citizenship by birth”.
During the riots in June, dozens of mainly young men had clashed with the police in the city centre. Several officers were injured and shop windows were destroyed.
Afterwards there was a controversial debate because, according to the Stuttgart police, they had asked some suspects about the nationality of their parents through the registry office after information about their origin had been denied during questioning. While critics asked what role an immigrant background played in the evaluation of the crimes, the police justified the action at that time, among other things, with the seriousness of the crimes and information for prevention concepts. Different concepts were needed for migrants from socially deprived areas than for Germans from more prosperous areas, for example.According to the ministry, the group of people in the night of the crime was of unequal origin: “The range of suspects ranges from 13-year-old Syrian refugees to 29-year-old Germans with education. The Ministry explained that it was only decided on a case-by-case basis whether and to what extent investigations into personal circumstances were necessary. Contacts abroad could, for example, play a role in assessing the risk of flight.In its parliamentary question, the AfD again criticised the fact that the migration background is not recorded in the crime statistics, but at the same time it is used for the statement that “foreigners are no more criminal than Germans”.The first trial concerning the night of the riot is scheduled for Tuesday. An 18-year-old has to answer to the Stuttgart local court for a particularly serious case of breach of the peace. Among other things, he is said to have smashed the rear window of a police car.