Germany to adopt tough anti-terror measures

Germans who have dual nationality face losing their German citizenship under new measures if they fight for a terrorist organisation abroad, Germany's Interior Minister said on Thursday.

"Germans who participate in fighting abroad for a terror militia and who have another citizenship should lose their German nationality," Thomas de Maiziere said at a press conference in Berlin.

The move comes after terror attacks took place last month in Wuerzburg, Ansbach and Munich.

According to the new plan, personnel and equipment will be increased to help fight terrorism efficiently.

The police will be boosted with the creation of 4,600 new posts over the next year. Security spending will be raised by €2.0 billion (US$2.2 billion) by 2020.

"I am convinced that these proposals will increase security quickly," de Maizere said.

The deportation of foreign criminals will be sped up.

De Maizere said "endangering public safety" would be enough for someone to be deported from the country.

"In this way, we will in future increasingly use the instrument of deportation for foreign criminals and people likely to cause a threat," he added.

Additionally, a new unit – the Central Office for Information Security (ZITiS) – will be formed to support security forces by developing strategies to fight terrorism on the Internet.

However, De Maiziere turned down a proposal to introduce a ban on the burqa, saying: "We can't ban everything that we reject, and I reject the wearing of the burqa."

Anti-terror measures are expected to be adopted during the legislative period which ends next autumn.