The German government’s civil defence plan, which as reported yesterday urged Germans to stockpile enough food and water for ten and five days, respectively “in case of an attack or catastrophe”, has been strongly condemned by the opposition party Die Linke (the Left Party), who accused Merkel that her proposal could result in a public frenzy. “By bringing out new plans all the time, the government could make people afraid people and even lead them to panic buy,” Dietmar Bartsch, co-chair of Die Linke told the Rheinische Post on Monday.
The government shouldn’t be adding to the sense of fear on a daily basis, Bartsch added cited by the Local, although we would note that the government could have easily avoided the daily “sense of fear” had it simply blocked Merkel’s “open door” refugee policy in the first place
Bartsch was responding to Interior Ministry plans published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on Sunday, advising people to stockpile food and water.
The plan, which makes civilian backing of troops a priority while boosting the resilience of buildings and increasing capacity in the healthcare system, is due to be adopted by the government on Wednesday.
Merkel’s government is updating Germany’s civil-defense guidance for the first time since 1995 to reflect evolving threats, according to the Interior Ministry. It follows the long-term reassessment of risks including terrorism and natural disasters based on a broad analysis, not any specific threat events, ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth says.
Dimroth added that the update is a “logical consequence” of developments since the mid-1990s, which were marked by sense of reduced risk after end of Cold War. The proposal is also Germany’s first civil defence strategy since the end of the Cold War.
So far during August, Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere has made two much-debated announcements on proposals believed to have been developed in response to three bloody attacks in Bavaria in July, two of which had Islamist links, and the third of which, a gun spree in Munich, involved the deaths of ten people. The teenager responsible for the Munich gun spree is not believed to have had any political motivation for his actions.
In the first raft of proposals, de Maiziere threatened to strip citizenship from jihadi fighters who have dual citizenship, as well as completely doing away with dual nationality.
Last week he also came out in favor of a partial ban on the burqa in public spaces, saying that showing one’s face “belongs to our culture.
Most notably, however, in late July after the spike of terrorist attacks on German soil, de Maiziere ordered increased security presence at airports, train stations and other public places, and added the“German army can play a domestic role in special cases.” Which is ironic, because while Germans may or may not be freaking out over the new civil defence directive, what they probably should be more concerned about is that the government can now deploy the army domestically in what, in its opinion, represents a special case.
via http://ift.tt/2c0aNtz Tyler Durden