German politician claims his daughter was sexually harassed by migrants amid ‘social upheaval’

Cem Özdemir, the country’s agriculture minister, said his teenager had been repeatedly ‘sexualised and unpleasantly ogled’

A German Green party leader said young migrant men had sexually harassed his daughter as he condemned the country’s migration policies for causing “massive social upheaval”.
Cem Özdemir, Germany’s agriculture minister and a key member of the Green party, said the country must act now to protect its democracy by making it clear to illegal immigrants that there is “no place” for them in Germany.
In an op-ed in the Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper, the Left-wing politician said it was his duty to speak out after hearing what had happened to his daughter.
His teenage daughter had been repeatedly “sexualised and unpleasantly ogled” on the streets by young migrant men, said Mr Özdemir, himself the son of Turkish immigrants.
Recent migration policies, which have seen millions of people come to Germany via irregular means, have made women less safe, he said. And he claimed the country was scared of debating the link between fundamentalist Islam and abuse of women because of fears it would empower the hard-Right.
“I’m convinced that the AfD benefits the most when we choose not to talk about real problems out of a misplaced sense of respect,” he stated.
Current policies amounted to a system of survival of the fittest and were leading to “massive social upheaval”, he added.
Imploring all mainstream parties to get behind plans to end illegal migration, Mr Özdemir warned that time was running out to save liberal democracy from attacks from the hard-Right.
If we don’t act now “we will all bear responsibility for not having acted in the knowledge of the dangers to our country,” he stated.
Mr Özdemir’s dramatic warning is the just latest example of a tectonic shift taking place in the German political landscape, where his Green party are renouncing their previous stance in favour of open borders.
After facing electoral disaster in three state elections this month, the Greens are in turmoil, with the party riven over migration and economic policies and deeply unpopular among voters.
Last week, the entire party leadership resigned after they failed to win a single seat at the state election in Brandenburg.
This followed a similar wipeout at the election in Thuringia a few weeks earlier.
Meanwhile, the party’s youth organisation declared that it was leaving to set up a new political movement, claiming that the national leadership had moved too far to the Right.
Mr Özdemir is a key figure on the moderate wing of the party, which is now rallying around Robert Habeck, the Vice-Chancellor, as it hopes to restore its fortunes before next year’s federal election.
Also last week, three state governments which include Green ministers demanded Chancellor Olaf Scholz take a tougher stance on illegal migration.
State executives in North Rhine Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein, where the Greens either run the state or are a junior coalition partner, called for a change in policy in light of a terror attack by a Syrian man in August that killed three people.
They called for asylum claims to be dealt with outside Germany, deportations of criminals to Syria, and the removal of protection for people who had gone back to their homeland on holiday.
For years, the Greens dominated the youth vote, with the Fridays for Future climate movement helping them to become the most popular party in Germany for a period before the last election.
Since then though, young voters have swung to the Right, as their main concern has moved from climate change to mass migration, leading to the AfD scoring stunning successes at state elections.