VIENNA, April 3, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – A German police chief has suggested drafting a new law obliging immigrants to integrate into society, citing spiraling crime rates among the minorities.

Konrad Freiberg, chairman of the Gewerkschaft der Polizei (Police syndicate), said the measure should compel newcomers to attend language classes and lectures on democracy and German values, the German Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung newspaper reported on Saturday, April 2.

He stressed that should immigrants fail to comply with the new measures, s/he should be deprived of any government assistance, including financial support and insurance, and deported to their home countries.

Freiberg voiced concerns that non-Germans tended to engage in violent acts, which sometimes targeted policemen.

He told the paper that recent statistics showed that a young immigrant out of every five in Berlin, for instance, has a criminal record.

Freiberg blamed the rising crime rates in German states to the increasing number of immigrants.

He also accused them of posing a threat to the lives of Germans, as well as being a drag on the country’s economy.

The police chief further criticized the “parallel societies” which immigrants were creating, saying this breeds more violence.

Freiberg called, meanwhile, for eradicating poverty and unemployment among immigrants, describing them as the main causes of violence.

His call contradicts with planned restrictions on the labor market proposed by Finance Minister Hans Eichel.

The official told a news conference on Friday, April 1, that he was resolved to filter out illegal workers.

Freiberg’s concerns echoed a report released last month by the European Union’s Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which showed that one of every two Europeans saw immigrants as having negative effects on their economies and cultures.

The report said that “multiculturalism” was rejected by most of the Europeans and two-thirds of them were against living side by side with people of different backgrounds.

It further found that 40 percent of the respondents believed that immigrants should not be given the same rights enjoyed by natives.

The report, however, said that the more the people are educated, the less they make reservations on multiculturalism.

The Arab European League (AEL), a rights group that has offices in  Belgium and the Netherlands, expressed last December concerns about the eruption of a new wave of Islamophobia and xenophobia in Europe.