Neo-Nazi leader loses hotel ban court case (Germany)

Hotels are entitled to refuse rooms to neo-Nazis, a court ruled late Tuesday in overturning a complaint by far-right leader Udo Voigt against a Brandenburg hotel.

Voigt, leader of the far-right National Democratic Party, had sued the Esplanade Resort & Spa in Bad Saarow, Brandenburg.

But on Tuesday, a court in Frankfurt an der Oder ruled that the hotel “had been entitled to bar the NPD leaders to protect their own reputation and image in view of the polarising effect of the NDP in the community.”

Furthermore, Voigt was not entitled to have the ban overturned under anti-discrimination laws, the court ruled.

A court spokesman said Voigt had taken the decision calmly. But Voigt’s lawyer said his client planned to appeal to a higher court.

Voigt’s wife had in autumn last year booked the hotel through a travel agent. But the hotel management then told Voigt on November 23 that he was banned from the hotel.

It declared that it was banning him because his political views were inconsistent with the hotel’s stated aim to “offer an excellent travel experience” to every guest.

Voigt felt discriminated against and sued. During the court case, he argued that he was staying at the hotel as a private individual, not for the purposes of political activity. The ban was the result of an agreement within the Hotel and Guesthouse Association, Dehoga, to maintain a ban on “so-called” right-wing extremists, he said.

The court rejected this view.

The hotel welcomed the decision. “This ruling strengthens us in our conviction to create the philosophy of a tolerant and cosmopolitan hotel, on the inside and the outside,” manager Heinz Baumeister said.

The Brandenburg chief of hotels association Dehoga said: “We share in the Brandenburg concept of a ‘tolerant Brandenburg,’ but for us, tolerance ends with right-wing extremism.”
The Local Germany

Australia restores race discrimination act

Australia has reinstated race laws that were suspended by the previous government in its campaign against child abuse in Aboriginal townships.

Suspending the law three years ago allowed the authorities to restrict how welfare payments to indigenous people were spent, with the aim of reducing the consumption of alcohol and drugs.

Indigenous activists and the UN condemned the policy as discriminatory.

The intervention powers will now also cover non-Aboriginal people as well.

Australia's landmark racial discrimination act was suspended by the conservative government of John Howard, as part of a raft of policies called "the intervention".

Despite delivering an official apology to Australia's indigenous people for past injustices soon after taking office, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had kept in place the main elements of the intervention, but his government has now reinstated the racial discrimination act.

The country's indigenous affairs minister, Jenny Macklin, said its suspension was a blight on Australia's international image, and left Aborigines feeling hurt, betrayed and less worthy than other Australians.

Restrictions on welfare payments not only remain in place but have been extended to non-indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory, a move which now makes the measures comply with the racial discrimination act.

So the move, which has little practical effect, has done little to appease indigenous groups, which continue to oppose the intervention.

BBC News

Terrorised family fear racist thugs could strike again (Belfast, Northern Ireland)

A Filipino family whose house was fire-damaged in a racially-motivated attack have said they are considering leaving their Whiteabbey home because they fear they could be targeted again.

Ishis Calungsod (30), his wife Emmie (29) and their two children moved into their Fernagh Avenue home two months ago but are now thinking of moving after arsonists set fire to two cars in their street during the early hours of Tuesday morning.

Both vehicles were extensively damaged and the front of Mr Calungsod’s house was scorched.

Police are treating both incidents as racially-motivated hate crimes.

Mr Calungsod said his children, who are aged four and six, have been left terrified by the ordeal.

The young family were asleep when the car, which was parked at the front door of their house, went up in flames. They were not aware the fire had spread until the fire brigade burst into their home to rescue them.

The Filipino, who moved to Northern Ireland five years ago to find work, said he could not think of any reason why they had been targeted.
The vehicle, he said, belonged to his friend Arnel Verzonilla, who lives several doors up. The other car damaged in the attack belongs to a neighbouring Indian family, the Tomys, who have lived in the area for the past six years.

However this was the second time the Tomys have been victims of a racially-motivated attack. In 2006 arsonists set fire to a different car.

“We didn’t have any problems before but now we are thinking of moving again,” Mr Calungsod said. “We moved here because our friends live here. They said it was a nice quiet street, good for our kids. And it had been. But now we are all scared.”

Meanwhile, police are also treating a series of attacks in south Belfast as racist and sectarian.

A group of up to eight masked men forced their way into a house on Coolfin Street shortly before 8.30pm on Monday where they slapped a Catholic woman across the face and smashed her furniture.
Following the attack the mob then forced their way into another house where they ransacked the inside then broke windows in a neighbouring house.

Minutes later they then forced their way into a house on the Donegall Road where they assaulted a man, who is believed to be Polish.

Belfast Telegraph