Racist attack

last updated 8 January 2015

Potsdam, Germany

Police last week arrested two men for beating a black man nearly to death, an incident that inspired a round of national soul-searching. Ermyas Mulugeta, a 37-year-old Ethiopian-born German, was in serious condition after the attack. Mulugeta was retrieving messages from his home phone when he was attacked, and his answering machine recorded sounds of an argument and a struggle, with a male voice calling him a “dirty nigger.” Interior Minister Wolfgang Schäuble triggered a political debate when he said the assault might not be a hate crime. “Blond, blue-eyed people are also the victims of attacks,” he said, “sometimes by attackers who might not even have German citizenship.” Authorities said the two men arrested in the case would likely be charged with hate crimes.