Germany will not tolerate "vigilante justice," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman said on Monday, after hundreds of far-right and neo-Nazi supporters protested in the eastern city of Chemnitz against the death of a man involved in a multi-ethnic dispute.
A 22-year-old Syrian citizen and a 21-0year-old Iraqi national were arrested in the killing of a 35-year-old German man during a clash after a street festival on Sunday.
Police said around 800 demonstrators had gathered in Chemnitz on Sunday, hours after the German man died following a dispute between several people of "different nationalities."
Some of the protesters had thrown bottles at police officers.
The demonstration followed calls on social media by far-right and neo-Nazi groups for protests over the man's death.
An amateur video posted on social media and aired by national broadcasters showed skinheads chasing a young Arab-looking man at a major intersection in the city. Other clips showed hundreds of demonstrators shouting "We are the people!" – a slogan used by far-right supporters.
A police spokeswoman could not comment on the nationalities of those involved or on media reports that the protesters were far-right supporters who had hounded migrants. The cause of the man's death was also not immediately clear.
Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert condemned Sunday's demonstration.
"We don't tolerate such unlawful assemblies and the hounding of people who look different or have different origins and attempts to spread hatred on the streets," he told a regular news briefing.
"That has no place in our cities and we, as the German government, condemn it in the strongest terms," he said. "Our basic message for Chemnitz and beyond is that there is no place in Germany for vigilante justice, for groups that want to spread hatred on the streets, for intolerance and for extremism."
Merkel's decision in 2015 to let in about a million migrants, many fleeing wars in the Middle East, has fueled support for far-right groups such as PEGIDA and the Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the main opposition party in parliament.
Tweeting about Sunday's incident, AfD politician Markus Frohnmaier said: "If the state is no longer to protect citizens then people take to the streets and protect themselves. It's as simple as that!"
Martina Renner, a lawmaker for the radical Left party, accused the far-right of trying to exploit a murder for its own political ends. "A terrible murder, the background to which is still unclear, is being instrumentalized in the most repugnant way for racist riots in Chemnitz," she tweeted.
The violence in Chemnitz is likely to put further pressure on Merkel's conservatives, who last week faced accusations of ignoring the rise of far-right groups in the eastern state of Saxony, where Chemnitz lies.
On Monday night, hundreds of police officers worked to keep right-wing and left-wing demonstrators apart in the city.
About 1,000 left-wing protesters yelled slogans like "Nazis out" and "There's no right to Nazi propaganda," at a group of right-wing demonstrators about double in number. They retorted with "We are louder, we are more" and "Lying press."
Officers in riot gear pushed people back as they tried to get at those on the other side. The demonstrators from the right hurled bottles and firecrackers at the rival camp before starting off on a march through Chemnitz. The police said the leftist protesters responded in kind.
The city's police department reported on Twitter that several people were treated for injuries, but gave no details.
Prosecutor Christine Muecke told reporters Monday the slaying stemmed from a verbal confrontation that escalated. Both suspects were being held on suspicion of manslaughter, Muecke said.
She refused to provide more details about the suspects or the victim.
Germany's Central Council of Jews condemned the violence, calling it a "civic duty to stand against the right-mob."
"It must never again be accepted in Germany that people are attacked because of their statements or their background," council President Josef Schuster said in a statement.
Of the estimated 800 people who took part in the first round of protests, about 50 were involved in violence and attacked police officers with bottles and stones, Chemnitz Police Chief Sonja Penzel said.
A Syrian teenager and an Afghan teenager were attacked in separate incidents but were not seriously hurt and a 30-year-old Bulgarian was also threatened, she said.
Penzel said police are still evaluating video footage and called for any witnesses to the violence to come forward.
