TERRORISM | 14.11.2011

Right-wing terrorism triggers new calls for ban on far-right parties

 

The terrorists have been linked to Germany's far-right scene

Recent revelations have led to fresh calls for a ban on far-right political parties after the German police arrested a further suspect belonging to a terrorist group linked to a string of racially-motivated murders.

 

Calls for a comprehensive ban on neo-Nazi organizations have been given fresh impetus following revelations that a far-right terror cell in all probability was reponsible for a series of immigrant murders across Germany.

The interior minister of the German state of Bavaria, Joachim Herrmann, said it was time for a new attempt to ban the neo-Nazi National Party of Germany, or NPD. Herrrmann called the party "dangerous" and a "threat to the constitution."

The president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Dieter Graumann told the DPA news agency that banning the NPD was "absolutely essential."

"The NPD avails itself of party privileges to enormous advantage. It uses the parliamentary platform to spread its poison and is being subsidized by taxpayers' money," said Graumann.

"Taxes for fascists and freedom for the mortal enemies of liberty - what sense does that make", he added.

The chariman of the Green party, Cem Özdemir, said it was time to "seriously consider an NPD ban."

"We need to talk about the NPD and far-right radicals becoming hegemonial in many parts of Germany; in particular, in the east of the republic," he said.

The head of the German police union, Bernhard Witthaut, stressed that a ban of the NPD had taken on a new urgency. Witthaut said that a ban would "undercut the party's financial basis" and would be a "heavy blow to the entire right-wing scene in Germany."

Terror cell links

Friedrich referred to a "new form of terrorism"German police made yet another an arrest on Sunday in their investigation into neo-Nazis suspected of a string of racially-motivated killings and the murder of a policewoman. The 37-year-old man was arrested in Hamburg on suspicion of being a member of the terrorist organization "National Socialist Underground" (NSU).

The NSU is now under investigation after it was linked it to the fatal shootings of nine immigrant food vendors, as well as a policewoman in southern Germany.

"Now it is all about finding out whether or not more people were involved, whether there is some kind of network and finding out what dimensions all this has," German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich told reporters.

"From all the evidence we have so far, it looks like we are experiencing a new form of far-right terrorism," he said

Chancellor Angela Merkel referred to the "alarming findings" about the group's activities as "shocking." "It is shameful that something like this is happening in our country," Merkel said on Sunday.

Notorious series of killings

Those shootings of eight Turkish and one Greek man, which took place between 2000 and 2006, became known as "The Kebab Murders."

The latest arrest follows a claim by police on Friday that they were investigating a 36-year-old woman charged with membership in a terrorist organization and arson.

The killing of a policewoman in Heilbronn was linked to the groupTwo other male suspects, who lived with the woman, were found dead earlier last week in a burning camping van in Eisenach, eastern Germany. It is believed that the men may have shot themselves after being rounded up by police following a failed bank robbery.

Investigators suspect that the arrested individual had been in contact with the trio since the 1990s. It is believed that he had given the alleged terror cell his driving license in 2007 - as well as his passport some four months ago.

It is also alleged that the man had rented camping vans for the three; one of which was used in the attack on police that killed a 22-year-old female officer in the German city of Heilbronn in 2007.

Revelations prompt prohibition ban 

Before the discovery of the group, the killings of the food vendors were thought to have been connected to organized crime.

The immigrant murders, believed to be the longest wave of right wing violence in Germany since World War II, have sparked new calls for a ban of the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD).

In 2003, a high-profile case for banning the NPD party came before the Karlsruhe-based court. The case, however, was thrown out after it was revealed that a number of the NPD's inner circle were in fact undercover agents or informants of the German intelligence services.

Author: Gregg Benzow, Richard Connor (dpa, EPD,AFP, Reuters)
Editor: Andreas Illmer

 

 

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