Merkel under pressure to ban neo-Nazi party

[Marcus Marulus]

25 August 2007

Merkel under pressure to ban neo-Nazi party

By Tony Paterson in Berlin

Published: 25 August 2007

Chancellor Angela Merkel is coming under mounting pressure to ban Germany's main neo-Nazi party following a brutal attack on eight Indian traders who were chased and beaten by a mob screaming racist abuse.
A leader of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) was charged with inciting racial hatred yesterday after he proposed Adolf Hitler's former deputy, Rudolf Hess, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Hours after Udo Voigt made the remarks in a speech in Jena marking the 20th anniversary of Hess's death last Saturday night, the Indian men were chased through the nearby town of Mügeln.

Kurt Beck, the leader of Ms Merkel's Social Democrat coalition partners, said that in light of the attacks he was preparing a new legal initiative aimed at outlawing the NPD. But Ms Merkel said she remained sceptical about such a move.

"I found the previous experience we had with this highly disagreeable," she said. "I definitely don't want a repeat of last time." An effort to ban the NPD failed in 2003 when judges at the country's highest court rejected the government's case after it emerged that some of the testimony was from government informants within the party.

The calls for a ban on Germany's largest neo-Nazi party - which has won parliamentary seats in two eastern states in recent regional elections - were the latest response to last weekend's disturbing outbreak of xenophobic violence.

Local people in the small town in the east German state of Saxony were enjoying the final hours of an annual street party on Saturday night when a drunken mob of 50 youths rampaged through a market and started harassing eight Indian stall holders who were selling textiles.

Shouting, "Get out of Germany" and chanting the far right slogan "Long live the national resistance" the gang chased the terrified Indians, who took refuge in a pizzeria and tried to barricade themselves in with the restaurant's tables. However, the mob smashed their way into the building, kicking and punching the Indians and attacking them with bottles. More than 70 heavily armed riot police rescued them. Gurminder Singh, one of the injured men, appeared on German television with a six-inch long head wound.

Amal, one of the main anti-Nazi groups in the region, said there had been 137 neo-Nazi attacks on individuals in Saxony during the first half of 2007, but believes the unofficial figure is much higher.

A recent survey conducted by the Forsa research group showed that every second east German youth between the age of 14 and 25 believed that National Socialism had " good sides".

The NPD won seats in Saxony in the state's last elections, and also captured seats in Ms Merkel's home state of Mecklenburg-Pomerania last year, when violent crimes by far-right extremists reached their highest level since the country's reunification in 1990. Rising far-right violence prompted Ms Merkel's predecessor, Gerhard Schröder to launch an attempt to ban the NPD in 2003, but the result was a legal fiasco. A ban was rejected by Germany's Karlsruhe constitutional court after it established that most of the evidence against the far-right party was inadmissible as it had been collected by government intelligence agents who had infiltrated the organisation.

[source]

[Aptrgangr]

Right-Wing Extremism, Neo-Nazism and Xenophobia on the Rise in Germany?

Politicians Raise Concerns about the Rise of Far-Right, as Eight Indian Men Are Violently Attacked in Eastern German Town


Attack victim Gurminder Singh poses for the media at a market in Doebeln Aug. 22, 2007. German police say a mob that attacked eight Indians in eastern Germany on Saturday night could have had far-right racist motives. Three of the Indians required hospital treatment after 50 people attacked the visitors at a town fair and then besieged them in a pizzeria until rescued. Seventy police were required to disperse the mob. (Hannibal Hanschke/Reuters)

By CHRISTEL KUCHARZ

It's been a week since eight Indian men were chased through the small eastern town of Muegeln, Germany, by a drunken mob while people looked on.
In the last seven days, speculation about why it happened, finger-pointing, soul-searching, worries and concerns over the violent incident have followed and brought back to the forefront issues of right-wing extremism, neo-Nazism and xenophobia in Germany.

In a country that has taken great pains to highlight recent historical transgressions and where Nazi activities are outlawed, the question arises once more: Is Germany facing the return of neo-Nazism?
After a brawl at a street festival, the eight Indian men suddenly found themselves being attacked by dozens of angry German youths shouting "Foreigners out" and "foreigners go back where you belong."
Some of the Indians were severely beaten and others were chased across the town's market square until they found shelter in a pizzeria run by an Indian.
The man let them in and locked the door, but the mob tried to kick in the door and smashed windows while shouting racist insults as a large crowd looked on.
Police forces eventually arrived on the scene, but it took a while for the large squad of 70 police officers to force back the crowd.
The violent rampage left 14 people wounded, including four of the attackers, two police officers and eight Indians, some of whom were beaten so badly they needed medical attention.
Initial reports regarding the incident sparked outrage and have dominated the national news ever since. Images of the victims' swollen eyes and bruised faces have been a constant in newspapers and on television.
Town authorities, who initially denied that any of the attackers had a right-wing agenda, were urged to stop extremists and do more to combat far-right violence.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned the attacks and said they needed to be cleared up as soon as possible.

Wolfgang Tiefensee, the minister responsible for development in the eastern states, told German news agency DPA, "Support for Nazi ideas in Germany is making people fear for their lives. We can't have this on German streets. We can't have this in schools and at the workplace."
He said the seriousness of what had occurred in Muegeln could not be understated. "These incidents again remind us the subject of right-wing extremism is something we need to deal with continually in Germany, and particularly in eastern Germany," Tiefensee was quoted by the news agency as saying.

Since German reunification in 1990, racist violence has been a recurring problem in East Germany, the poorer part of the country. Last year, crimes committed by neo-Nazis and other right-wing extremists reached the highest level since reunification.
Stern Magazine published a recent survey of 14- to 25-year-olds by the Forsa opinion poll institute, which showed that one out of two youths in eastern Germany now believe that National Socialism had "its good sides."
Unemployment is still extremely high in the former East Germany and discontent is growing. Many young people must leave their home towns to find jobs in western Germany.
Those left behind often become easy targets for right-wing ideas represented by Germany's nationalist political party, the NPD. The far-right NPD, which is legal in Germany, is best known for slogans such as "German jobs for Germans" or "Foreigners out."

The party is viewed by its opponents and the mainstream media as a de-facto neo-Nazi party. The accusations stem from the NPD's opposition to the increasing number of nonwhites, Jews and Muslims living in Germany.
Party philosophy also mandates that the current political system in Germany is illegitimate and that NATO fails to represent German interests. The party platform also calls for revision of the post-war border agreement.
The NPD is represented in two regional parliaments in eastern Germany and its members are finding it easier to gain footholds in local councils in eastern Germany. Funding is often made available for youth centers of the far-right.

Mainstream politicians are calling for a ban of the NPD despite the fact that previous efforts to ban the party failed in 2003. The leader of the NPD, Udo Voigt, has been charged with inciting race hatred, which is a criminal offence in Germany.
In what is widely regarded as proof of the twisted worldview of the NPD's right-wing followers, Voigt proposed Adolf Hitler's Deputy Rudolf Hess for the peace prize during a speech last week to coincide with the 20th anniversary of Hess' death.

Merkel said on German TV that she was skeptical about pursuing a party ban, stressing that she did not want a repeat of the 2003 decision.
In a disturbing trend, as authorities continue to investigate last week's attacks, right-wing violence seems to have become a daily occurrence, according to police reports.

Friday
"Neo-Nazis painted swastikas and racist slogans like 'Foreigners out' on two buildings, including one used by asylum seekers," the police spokesman in Cottbus, a small town in eastern Germany, told ABC News. "Large swastikas were sprayed on the glass doors of the buildings and the bus stand across the street overnight. Police in Cottbus is investigating."

Saturday
Authorities in the eastern city of Magdeburg said that a 36-year-old Iraqi man was the victim of a racially motivated attack, during which an unidentified man beat him with a baseball bat and set a dog on him before fleeing.

Sunday
In the small northeastern town of Buetzow, food and drink stalls — some of them owned by foreigners — were damaged, parasols were set ablaze and police officers were pelted with bottles when about 40 people went on a rampage in the early hours, according to a police report. The report mentions no evidence that far-right supporters were involved in the clashes, but the local paper, Schweriner Volkszeitung, quoted an unnamed police official as saying that local far-right demonstrators were among the violent troublemakers.
Meanwhile, the police have made no arrests and politicians are demanding that Germany do more to fight right-wing

However, according to the general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, "Officials make the same statements every time there is an attack on foreigners."
In an interview with German news service Netzeitung, Kramer said, "There is never a noticeable change in the strategy to fight xenophobia. Yesterday it was people of color, today it is foreigners and tomorrow it will be gays or lesbians or perhaps Jews."

ABC News: Neo-Nazism Possibly Rising in Germany

ABC News: Neo-Nazism Possibly Rising in Germany Comments

Originally Posted by ABCN Comment

When non-Europeans beat up on white tourists, what do self-righteous MSM journalists call it? They don't call it anything because they don't report it. The self-loathing white elites that are responsible for importing millions of non-Europeans into their citizens' home countries should be held accountable for their misdeeds. They are nation-destroyers who fantasize about some kind of multicultural utopia that will atone for the sins of western civilization. No other people in the world are that stupid, naive or self-destructive. Unfortunately, mankind is basically tribalistic, and people identify and gather with those that look like, act like and speak the same language as they do. Indians should not be in Germany. Germany is for Germans, not Turks, Indians, Chinese, or any other tribal group. The irony in higher education today is that our university elites push minorities to be separate from the majority population by encouraging them to have their own dorms, their own graduation ceremonies, their own special ethnic classes, their own clubs and more. Yet, they preach diversity and tolerance to whites, and if whites lash out in frustration against what's been undemocratically foisted upon them, they are immediately labled Nazis, rascists, bigots, and xenophobes. In the last fifty years the United States has been inundated with non-European immigrants, and wherever their population reaches critical mass, whites move away. Germans don't have that luxury.

All these alledged Neonazi attacks are nothing but a tempest in a teapot compared to to the attacks of Muslim and coloured immigrants on Germans.

"Daily terror on Berlin's streets. Police formes 6 special squadrons to counter youth crime. They almost excusively have to deal with foreign youngsters.

21 yrs old Jennifer P. and 35 yrs Kay L. old were scared to death. They unintentionally got in a dipute with Aynur, who called for enforcment via mobile-phone.
The Germans fled into a supermarket as 50 Turks chased them, srceaming "you won't live long, we will slit you German pigs". Police had to escort the couple out of the supermarket. The enraged crowd of Turks shouted: "You German scumbags, piss off. This is our district." The saleswoman of the supermarket said: "We are used to that, they humiliate us daily". (...)

Migranten-Gewalt: Täglicher Terror auf Berlins Straßen - Aus aller Welt - Panorama - FOCUS Online

A small article in a magazine, that's all. No 24/7 whining for raped German girls and murdered and injured German guys.