“As a refugee, it is difficult to find a girlfriend.” — Asif M., a 26-year-old asylum seeker from Pakistan, responding to charges that he had raped one woman and attempted to rape five others in Berlin.
Sudanese migrants, many of whom were allowed to enter Germany without having their fingerprints taken, have “created a business model” out of social security fraud. — Police in Lower Saxony.
Only 6,500 refugees of the more than one million who have been allowed into Germany during the past two years are enrolled in work training programs. — Federal Employment Agency.
The German Parliament approved a controversial law to fine social media networks up to €50 million euros ($57 million) if they fail to remove so-called hate speech. Critics said the purpose of the law is to silence criticism of the government’s open-door migration policy.
The Muslim population of Germany surpassed six million in 2017 to become approximately 7.2% of the overall population of 83 million, according to calculations by the Gatestone Institute.
A recent Pew Research Center study on the growth of the Muslim population in Europe estimated that Germany’s Muslim population had reached five million by the middle of 2016, but that number is short by at least a million.
Pew, for instance, “decided not to count” the more than one million Muslim asylum seekers who arrived in the country in 2015-2017 because “they are not expected to receive refugee status.” European Union human rights laws, however, prohibit Germany from deporting many, if not most, of the refugees and asylum seekers back to conflict areas. As a result, most migrants who arrived in the country will almost certainly remain there over the long term.
In addition, German authorities have admitted to losing track of potentially hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, many of whom are living on German streets and are believed to be sustaining themselves on a steady diet of drug dealing, pickpocketing, purse snatching and other forms of petty crime.
Islam and Islam-related issues, omnipresent in Germany during 2017, can be categorized into several broad themes:
The social and economic effects of accommodating more than a million mostly Muslim migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East;
A rapidly deteriorating security situation marked by a dramatic increase in migrant-related violent crime;
A migrant rape epidemic targeting German women and children;
Islamic extremism and the security implications of German jihadists;
The continuing spread of Islamic Sharia law in Germany;
The challenge of Muslim integration; and,
The failures of German multiculturalism.