Hamburg paper hit with firebomb, stones after Charlie Hebdo attack
12 Jan 2015
A building of German newspaper Hamburger Morgenpost was the target of a firebomb attack just a couple of days after the French terror attack that left the world stunned.
No casualties were reported and two suspects have been arrested, police said on Sunday.
Like many other German newspapers, Hamburger Morgenpost has reprinted cartoons of French satire magazine Charlie Hebdo after the deadly attack on Wednesday in Paris.
A police spokeswoman said that an incendiary device was thrown at the newspaper building in the night and documents were burned inside. Two suspects were arrested near the crime scene because they behaved in an unusual manner.
The newspaper said on its web page that there were no people inside the building when the attack happened at 2 pm local time on Sunday. Whether the arson attack was connected to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons was still under investigation, the paper added.
Police said state security had taken over the investigations.
According to reports, unidentified people hurled stones and an incendiary devices into the building of the newspaper office.
An investigation has been ordered into the attack. The police added that it was too soon to say if the attack was linked to Charlie Hebdo terror attack (See: France in mourning amid manhunt for 'Hebdo' killer brothers).
The attack on a German tabloid comes in the wake of intensified anti-Islam sentiment raging across Europe and anti-Islamisation rallies held in the country by PEGIDA (Patriotic Europeans against the Islamisation of the West) protesters.
However, to counter the PEGIDA rallies held in recent weeks, some 35,000 people marched through the German city of Dresden in a rally organised by the government of the state of Saxony and the city of Dresden.
The mayor of Dresden also urged the PEGIDA protesters to bring a change in their mindsets and join the rallies against racism. "We will not allow hatred to divide us," Mayor Helma Orosz said.
"I believe that this is a clear sign that our society is standing together, and furthermore that we're not forgetting those who are afraid, those who might march with Pegida on Monday," she added.