Germany Amps up Security Clampdown, Proposes Burka Ban

Germany’s right-wing political class is set to back a number of proposals in a surge of anti-terror security clampdowns, BBC reported Wednesday.

Among the proposed security measures is a burka ban, proposed by Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere.

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The measures are seen as a response to a number of incidents for which the Islamic State group have claimed responsibility.

In July, a teenager injured five people on a train in Wuerzburg with an axe, while in the same month, a failed asylum seeker from Syria killed himself and injured 15 people when he set off a bomb outside of a music festival in Ansbach.

The burka ban is being proposed in a country that otherwise has few restrictions on the the way people dress. A government committee in 2012 issued a report saying it would be unconstitutional to ban the burka.

Under the new measures, more police would be seen in and around train stations. | Photo: AFP

With de Maiziere’s plan to relax doctors' confidentiality obligations, for which they can currently be fined or imprisoned if they breach patient confidentiality, doctors in Germany – along with the political left – are criticizing the measures.

"Patient confidentiality protects patients' privacy and is a basic right under the constitution,” Frank Ulrich Montgomery, the head of the German Medical Association, told the BBC. "The tense domestic security situation must not tempt us into rash political and legal measures.”

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On Thursday, de Maiziere is expected to announce regressive plans for speeding up the deportation process, in which being a "threat to public security" would be grounds for deporting migrants.

Next week, he is also expected to back a number of measures that are being considered by a grouping of German states' interior ministers from within his own Christian Democrat party as well its Bavarian sister party.

These measures – besides the burka ban – include eliminating the ability to hold dual nationality, recruiting 15,000 more police officers by 2020, and making it more difficult for "extremist" organisations to finance mosques.

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