DRESDEN, Germany, Nov 14, 2001 -- (dpa) Two-thirds of Germans say that in the fight against terrorism domestic security takes priority over personal freedom, a report in the eastern German city of Dresden said Wednesday.
According to a poll conducted by the Market Research Institute of Leipzig for the Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten newspaper, 58 percent of Germans are prepared to accept limits on their freedoms to ensure security from terrorism inside the country.
For the nation-wide study, researchers questioned 1,000 adults during the first few days of November. When asked what measures should be undertaken to increase domestic security, 93 percent of respondents said they supported deporting extremists from foreign countries and 83 percent agreed that identification cards should include their owners' fingerprints, the report said.
Clear majorities favored increasing the power of police and secret service authorities as well as denying certain groups of foreigners entry into the country.
Two-thirds of respondents agreed that "terrorism should be fought only through political means and economic cooperation" and just one in ten said he feared Germany faced direct terrorist attacks.
Although three-fourths of those polled expressed solidarity with the United States' efforts to combat terrorism the degree of support for military strikes against Afghanistan varied between eastern and western Germans, the report said.
While 76 percent of western Germans agreed that "the Americans deserve our full support because the (September 11 ) terrorist attacks applied to the entire "civilized world", just 62 percent of easterners agreed with the statement.
Forty-three percent of respondents in the east, compared with 35 percent in the west, said the Americans had "provoked the attacks themselves as a result of their policies".