States try again to ban neo-Nazi party (Germany)

Germany's states are making a renewed push to ban the country's best-known neo-Nazi party, arguing it

is basically the same as Hitler's party, and is damaging democracy.
The states - represented in the upper house of parliament, the Bundesrat - are due to submit their application for a ban to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday.

It is the second attempt to ban the NPD (National Democratic Party of Germany), after the same court rejected a submission in 2003, because too much of the crucial evidence was from party members who were acting as paid agents of the security services.

That attempt was backed by the government and Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, as well as the Bundesrat. This time the Bundesrat is going it alone, after the other two bodies decided a second attempt was unlikely to succeed.

This time around, the submission consists only of publicly available evidence, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) newspaper reported - as well as two reports from academics.
One of these talks of a "continuity in ideological direction" from historical National Socialism to the NPD. A second says that the actions of the NPD have "already led to the limitation of public democratic life at the local level."

The NPD last got 0.8 percent of the vote in Lower Saxony's state election, 1.2 percent in Bavaria and 1.1 percent in Hesse, while in September's federal election they managed 1.3 percent. They have a total of 13 state MPs in Saxony and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.

The submission to ban the party claims the NPD wants to violently deport foreigners and migrants, as well as those who have German citizenship but do not met their narrow definition of being German enough.

It also argues that the NPD's, "rejection of the democratic parliamentary system of government, its relativism of National Socialist injustice and the relativism of the state's monopoly on the legitimate use of force" counted as breaches of the basic order of peaceful democracy.

The FAZ also said that a security service report included in the submission suggested that one in four of the NPD's leadership nationally and in states, had criminal records for offences including assault, criminal damage, trespassing, and propaganda-related offences. Half of those convicted were, according to the report, habitual offenders and had been given prison sentences for their crimes.
The Bundestag decided to make the submission a year ago in the wake of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) case, in which a neo-Nazi gang, which had some connections to NPD functionaries, are accused of killing ten people over a period of seven years.

The Local Germany

Mother of NSU suspect Zschäpe refuses to testify in neo-Nazi killings case (Germany)

The mother of Beate Zschäpe, the woman on trial in Germany over her alleged role in a string of neo-Nazi murders, has refused to testify. Annerose Zschäpe claimed a legal right not to testify against a close relative.

Annerose Zschäpe (pictured right), who appeared with her lawyer at the Munich Higher Regional Court on Wednesday, said she was using her right under German law to refuse to give testimony against a close relative.

In her brief, three minute appearance, the 61-year-old also directed that her statements made to officers in the November 2011 investigation of the case should not be used in court.

Beate Zschäpe is alleged to be the only surviving member of a trio known as the National Socialist Underground, which prosecutors claim embarked on an "execution-style" killing spree between 2000 and 2009.

The three, Zschäpe and the now-deceased Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt, were allegedly behind the murder of nine immigrants of Turkish and Greek background, as well as a German policewoman.

Prosecutors have portrayed 38-year-old Zschäpe as having been a troubled youth growing up in eastern Germany as communism came to an end - with the mass unemployment, youth crime and spread of neo-Nazi ideology that followed.

Parental failure has been an important issue in the trial, with Böhnhardt's mother giving evidence earlier in the month.

'Right, but not so extreme'

Mother and daughter, who are reported to have had a difficult relationship, were said not to have looked at each other in the courtroom.

Despite the refusal of Zschäpe's mother to testify, her cousin - identified only as Stefan A. - did speak in court on Wednesday about the childhood of the accused.

He described the defendant, with whom he grew up in the eastern German city of Jena, as "nice," but added that she was "not a girl to simply accept things." Zschäpe had right-wing leanings, he said, but these were "not so extreme" and commonplace among young people in the low-income city.

"We already had a bias towards the right then," said the 39-year-old. "We hated the state, foreigners, the left - just about everything," he said, but added that he had not directly discussed politics with Zschäpe.

Stefan A. added that he had lost contact with Zschäpe and the two men. "Uwe Mundlos disapproved of my lifestyle. I drank a lot and partied," he said, adding Mundlos had become a teetotaler.

German police and intelligence agencies have been criticized for their failure to detect a far-right motive for the killings, and for not following up a trail of clues that would have led to the group being caught.

Zschäpe is alleged to have set fire to an apartment she shared with Mundlos and Böhnhardt in the city of Zwickau, after the two died in an apparent suicide pact in November, 2011.

D.W.

White supremacist group considers John Day for possible national headquarters (USA)

Grant County residents are taking steps to fight any effort by members of a white supremacist group calling themselves the Aryan Nations to find a new headquarters in John Day.
On Friday, residents will gather for two town hall meetings in Canyon City, just south of John Day. Speakers will include Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, attorneys Norman Gissell and Tony Stewart, who helped win a landmark judgment against the Church of Jesus Christ Christian-Aryan Nations in 2000.
On Monday, 60 to 70 protesters carried signs in downtown John Day with slogans such as "One Race: Human," "No to Aryan Nations!" and "Say No to Hate and Violence!"
The gatherings come in the wake of a visit to John Day last week by Paul R. Mullet, who described himself as the Aryan Nations national director. He told townspeople he was in town to look at two large downtown properties for a possible national headquarters for the group, said John Day Mayor Bob Quinton.
Mullet, of Athol, Idaho, added that Grant County, with its wide open spaces, would be an ideal setting for both a headquarters and a neo-Nazi national gathering in September 2011.
Mullet also said he was looking for a property with enough space to train recruits, house them in a barracks, and hold gatherings. The group would pay cash "from legal means," he said.
Wearing a uniform shirt with a swastika patch, Mullet was accompanied by Leif Berlin, described as the group's Washington state leader, and Grant County residents Jacob Green of Mount Vernon and Christopher Cowan of John Day, said John Day Police Chief Richard Tirico.
Quinton expressed surprise that anyone in the county would be affiliated with the hate group.
"If they've got a presence here, it's been pretty much under the radar," he said.
But Grant County Undersheriff Todd McKinley said officials aren't dismissing the group's plan. "We are taking it seriously," he said.
Grant County, with fewer than 8,000 residents in an area twice the size of Delaware, "would rather be known for cattle and timber and their rivers, and not be known as an area that harbors a hate group," McKinley added.
Monday's rally drew a broad cross section, Quinton said.
"There were grandmothers and people in their 20s and every age group in between," he said. "There were log trucks honking and cars honking and people waving."
The supremacist group advocates so-called racial purity and claims that Jews and nonwhites are natural enemies of white people. The group seeks to establish a state for the "Aryan race," where nonwhites would be prohibited.
The group's interest in Grant County may have been piqued by a 2002 ballot measure declaring the county a "U.N.-free" zone. The designation has occasionally attracted outsiders with the mistaken idea that Grant County is lawless and a good spot to lie low, law enforcement officials said.
Lt. Stuart Miller of the Kootenai County Sheriff's Office in Coeur d'Alene monitors separatist, neo-Nazi and white supremacist activities. He said the group has been relatively inactive in the Idaho panhandle since the 2004 death of Richard Butler, the group's longtime leader.
Butler owned a 20-acre compound and neo-Nazi church near Hayden Lake, north of Coeur d'Alene, for many years. He was forced to sell it in 2000 after losing a $6.3 million lawsuit brought by two Native Americans, a mother and son, who were shot at by Aryan Nations members.
The group's current national leader is August B. Kreis 3rd of Lexington, S.C., according to the group's Web site. The site says the group's national headquarters will soon move to St. Cloud, Fla.
Mullet, meanwhile, and two associates were accused in August of scattering supremacist literature on lawns around Coeur d'Alene, Miller said, but charges of littering were later dismissed.
Grant County remains on guard.
"I can guarantee you we are probably not done with the issue," said Tirico, the police chief. "Most of the population is agreeing they will stand together on this. I am very happy with the community on the way they handled this."

Originaly posted by Richard Cockle at dailyme

Russian Neo-Nazi Murder Squads Kill 71 In 2009

Russia's battle against the country's neo-Nazis is reaching boiling point as it emerged they killed 71 people last year. One group recently posted a sickening video message on the internet celebrating a stabbing attack which killed a Ghanaian man in December. Yet members of the country's most prominent ultra-nationalist group deny their tactics are violent.

The Slavic Union spoke to Sky News during their bi-monthly "training" in remote woods just outside Moscow. Dressed in winter camouflage they greet each other with macho hugs as they gather round a campfire and help each other attach red arm bands emblazoned with their adapted swastika.

Rifles and semi-automatic weapons are assembled and they are ready to start flexing their muscles.
These neo-Nazis see themselves as hero warriors fighting for the rights of Russians in Russia.

They begin "practice" fighting with knives and firing at trees - all part of the "non-violent" approach.

Up to 20 of their members are in jail for racially motivated murder and attacks - senseless murder of those whose crime may simply have been not looking Russian enough. Sasha Zorg's upper body is covered in tattoos, one of which is a swastika. He has been in prison twice for shooting two migrant workers.

"I call it my struggle," he tells me. "I'll continue."

The group spend as much time photographing each other with guns as they do training. The man at the centre of many of the poses is the Slavic Union's leader Dmitry Dyomushkin. He's keen to cultivate an image of himself as the respectable face of a Far Right which he sees as a legitimate challenge to the current government.

"Sixty per cent of Russians support our goals," he said.

"But even with this majority we are not allowed to be part of the political process because the government has squeezed out opposition.

"The whole new generation of Russians are nationalists - our influence on young people is very strong."

His quest for a publicly acceptable image is not helped when his followers do a group Nazi salute, hailing the regime which 25 million Russians gave their lives to end.

The chilling face of extremism was revealed when another neo-nazi group calling themselves "the warriors of the white revolution" unveiled their video message of the attack on Ghanaian Solomon Attengo Gwa-jio in St Petersburg. They described the footage as "a new year gift" as they pledged further acts of terror. No one has been arrested for the December attack, during which the victim was stabbed 20 times. It sadly echoes so many other incidents of random racist brutality.

Most are committed by young Russians who seem to inhabit a world of violence where patriotism and nationalism have become - too often fatally - confused.

Moscow-based human rights group SOVA said authorities are finally tackling the problem, though not for the right reasons.

"I think mostly it's not because of the murders themselves but because the potential of riots based on this ethnic hatred," SOVA director Alexander Verkhovsky told Sky News.

He says the situation is reaching boiling point, forcing the authorities to act.

"The authorities would hate to lose control over some district or city," Mr Verkhovsky said.

"And so they try to suppress any activity including violent activity which may turn to such riots."

heres the sky video of the item

thanks to West Midlands Unity for finding this item
origin      Sky News