Politicians renew calls for to ban far right Neo-Nazi political party the NPD in Germany

Seven years after Germany’s high court refused to ban the neo-Nazi NPD party, a growing number of politicians are advocating a renewed attempt to end their legitimacy.

Members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), their Bavarian sister party the CSU, and opposition centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) want the right-wing extremists off the country’s political playing field, daily Bild reported on Monday.

“The NPD follows clearly anti-constitutional goals and must disappear from the political landscape,” Bavarian Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU) told the paper. “I am working on a new case for an NPD ban.”

To strengthen his case, Herrmann encouraged the country’s domestic intelligence agency to disengage its top spies in surveillance of NPD leadership. The 2003 ban request reportedly failed because the constitutional court believed that domestic intelligence agents from the Verfassungsschutz could have influenced the actions of the neo-Nazis under their watch.

“For a successful ban we don’t need the information from (them),” Herrmann told the paper. “There is enough material that proves the NPD is an enemy of the constitution.”

SPD member and Berlin Interior Minister Ehrhart Körting agreed.

"According to my estimation the NPD is an anti-constitutional party that should be banned," he told the paper. "This is open to see. For this I don’t need any (Verfassungsschutz) people."

Meanwhile Interior Minister for the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Lorenz Caffier (CDU) told the paper that existing evidence shows the right-wing extremist party to be aggressively attempting to attack Germany democracy and replace it with Nazi ideology.
SPD interior expert Sebastian Edathy also supported the disengagement of intelligence agents to further the case against the neo-Nazi party.
The Local

The NPD
The National Democratic Party of Germany (German: Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, NPD), is a pan-German nationalist political party. The party was founded in 1964 as a successor to the German Reich and is often classified as being on the far right of the political spectrum. The party bills itself "Deutschlands stärkste Rechte" (Germany's strongest right-wing party). Udo Voigt has led the Party since 1996.


The mainstream media and the NPD’s political opponents often label the party as a Neo-Nazi organization. The German Federal Agency for Civic Education, or BPB, has criticized the NPD for working with members of organizations which the federal courts later found to be unconstitutional and were disbanded. The party rejects this depiction, calls it an attempt to discredit the NPD's politics and states that the party stands for the interests of the German people and for the German state. The German federal intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, classifies the NPD as a "threat to the constitutional order" because of its platform and philosophy, and the party is under their observation.
In recent years, the Party has focused on broad social issues such as unemployment and economic problems. The Party currently is represented in two of Germany's sixteen state parliaments with no seats at the federal level.
Wikipedia

Russian Government Stats Show Extremist Crimes Up Dramatically Since 2004

head of the MVD's anti-extremism unit has released statistics on the number of extremist crimes in Russia, according to a January 26, 2010 report by the Sova Information-Analytical Center. General Yuri Kokov
gave the following figures, which show a rapid growth in the number of such crimes over the past five years

According to his statistics, 130 extremist crimes were recorded in 2004, 460 in 2008, and 549 in 2009. As usual, the MVD stats did not distinguish between hate crimes and crimes connected to Islamic extremists, insurgents in Chechnya, or even peaceful opposition demonstrators, whom police are targeting with increasing frequency by abusing anti-extremism legislation. But General Kokov did say that there are 150 neo-fascist groups active in Russia.

General Kokov admitted that his statistics are not 100% reliable. He also added that 549 extremist

crimes do not seem like much compared to the overall crime number for 2009 of 3,000,000. "Nevertheless," he said, "it ought to be pointed out that even one crime connected to the specific and delicate sphere of

inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations can drastically destabilize or even explode the situation, not only in one specific region, but in the entire state... That is the main danger presented by extremist incidents. Sometimes, a typical bar fight or night club brawl can lead to unpredictable consequences, including mass disorders on inter-ethnic or inter-religious grounds. It's enough to remember what happened in

Kondopoga, Salsk, Kalmykiya."

Belarusian Jewish conscientious objector jailed (Russia)

Amnesty International has called on the Belarusian authorities to release a conscientious objector, found guilty by the Minsk District Court of "draft evasion" and sentenced to three months in prison on Monday.Ivan Mikhailau had refused military service because bearing arms contradicts his religious beliefs as an active member of the Messianic Jewish community. He was arrested in the town of Salihorsk, south of the capital, Minsk, on 15 December 2009.

Amnesty International considers Ivan Mikhailau to be a prisoner of conscience, detained for the peaceful expression of his beliefs.

Ivan Mikhailau’s lawyer told Amnesty International that his family intends to appeal against the verdict. His detention since 15 December counts towards his three-month sentence. He remains in the pre-trial detention centre in Zhodino – a town about 50km north east of Minsk - where he has been held since shortly after his arrest.

Military service is compulsory in Belarus for all males between the ages of 18 and 27. Even though the Belarusian Constitution states that citizens have a right to alternative civilian service, no such option is provided for in practice.

The right to refuse military service for reasons of conscience is inherent in the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion as laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) to which Belarus is a party.

According to his lawyer, after being summoned to military service in December 2008 Ivan Mikhailau told the Minsk district military that he was unable to carry out military service for religious reasons. Instead he requested to take part in civilian service as an alternative to military service.

In January 2009 the authorities denied his request on the grounds that an alternative civilian service does not exist. Ivan Mikhailau approached the military authorities a second time asking if he could substitute military service with service in the reserves. In June 2009 his request was again denied and the authorities then assigned Ivan Mikhailau to full-time military service.

Amnesty International is calling on the Belarusian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release Ivan Mikhailau. Furthermore, the organization urges the authorities to ensure that Ivan Mikhailau and other conscientious objectors are either absolved from military service or permitted to wait until an alternative service is in place.

The organization urges the authorities to adopt a law that provides for a genuine civilian alternative to military service and recalls that Belarus is a state party to the ICCPR, and therefore obliged to recognize the right to conscientious objection.

On 3 November 2006, the Human Rights Committee ruled that the prosecution and conviction of two conscientious objectors by the Republic of Korea for their refusal to perform compulsory military service had breached Article 18 of the ICCPR as no civilian alternative was available.

Amnesty International