German conservatives criticized over response to right-wing radicalism in Saxony

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives faced accusations on Thursday of ignoring the rise of far-right groups in the eastern German state of Saxony after an incident there involving an off-duty police employee at an anti-Islam rally.

Saxony's interior ministry confirmed on Wednesday that the police employee had attended a march by anti-Islam group PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West) last Saturday and had reported TV journalists covering the rally to police, who detained them for 45 minutes.

Video footage showed a well-built man in sunglasses and a hat in the colours of the German flag confronting the crew, waving his hands at the camera, telling them not to film and reporting them to the police.

State premier Michael Kretschmer, a senior member of Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU), then appeared to defend the police action, tweeting: "The only people who come across seriously in this video are policemen."

'Trivializing' far-right violence

At a time when Germany is struggling to integrate more than a million migrants, the event has raised concern both about entrenched right-wing sympathies among the police, especially in the former communist east, and about press freedom.

Speaking on a visit to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, Merkel said the right to demonstrate must be fully ensured. However, she added: "Anyone who goes to a demonstration must expect that he will be recorded and observed by journalists. So there has to be freedom for journalists to work."

"I want to express my explicit commitment to the freedom of the press," she told a news conference.

A deputy leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), who share power with the CDU in the federal government, earlier accused Merkel's party of complacency. "The CDU in Saxony has for decades denied or trivialized right-wing radical movements and violence," Ralf Stegner told Handelsblatt daily. It has "allowed right-wing thinking in Saxony not only to go unchallenged but also to be acceptable", he said.

Press Freedom

German Justice Minister Katarina Barley, also from the SPD, said the events were "very worrying" and had to be quickly and comprehensively cleared up.

Kretschmer has since said he is a convinced defender of a free press. Merkel's decision in 2015 to let in about a million migrants, many fleeing wars in the Middle East, has fuelled support for far-right groups such as PEGIDA and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the main opposition party in parliament.

Saxony, the cradle of the PEGIDA movement, is a stronghold for far-right sentiment. In last year's federal election, the AfD was the strongest party in the state, pushing Merkel's CDU into an embarrassing second place.

Kretschmer, who has criticised Merkel's migration policy, faces a tough challenge in next year's state election to hold Saxony for the CDU.

Neo-Nazis have a strong tradition in Saxony, especially in the capital, Dresden, where they gather every year on Feb. 13 to mark the Allied firebombing of the city in World war Two which killed 25,000 people and destroyed its baroque architecture.