23 October 2006
Sixteen neo-Nazis have been arrested during a demonstration in Berlin in support of the jailed lead singer of the banned skinhead band Landser. Some 750 neo-Nazis and other far-right supporters turned out Saturday outside of a Berlin prison to call for the release of Michael Regener, who was jailed in 2003 when a Berlin court found his rock band Landser ("Foot Soldiers") guilty of spreading hate against Jews and foreigners in their songs. The demonstration was organized by the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), which last month won representation in an east German state legislature. Mainstream politicians and Jewish leaders have expressed concern that far-right groups, including violent neo-Nazis, are growing in strength, particularly in the east. Experts say they are exploiting the region's shallow democratic roots after decades of communism and tapping frustration at the depressed local economy.
Israel's ambassador to Germany, Shimon Stein, warned that Jews in Germany felt increasingly "unsafe," pointing to the heavy security that surrounds most synagogues or Jewish community centers. "They are not able to live a normal Jewish life," Stein told a newspaper, calling on Germans to take extra measures to fight the trend of what he called rising anti-Semitism.
