Berlin, Germany: New attempt to ban far-right NPD seems to have failed
April 01, 2008
Germany’s second attempt to ban the National Democratic Party (NPD) seems to have failed due to the fact that a number of states ruled by Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) are refusing to cooperate in opening a trial against the party.
The CDU is skeptical about the plan to mount a new bid to get the party outlawed because it would make it more difficult to monitor the right-wing extremist scene. Additionally, the CDU is afraid that banning the NPD would drive right-wing extremists underground.
Charlotte Knobloch, president of Germany’s Central Council of Jews, told a German newspaper that she doesn’t agree with the way this is being handled. Dieter Graumann, her deputy, told the Associated Press that it would be a sign of “helplessness and resignation”. The domestic intelligence agency, the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (Verfassungsschutz), describes the NPD as “racist, antisemitic, revisionist”.
Source: Spiegel Online, 01-04-2008
