jueves, 15 de diciembre de 2011

FAR-RIGHT AUTHOR KILLS TWO, THEN SELF IN FLORENCE

An Italian far-right author shot dead two Senegalese vendors and wounded three in Florence on Tuesday before killing himself in a daylight shooting spree that prompted outpourings of grief in the historic city. Witnesses said they saw the gunman calmly getting out of a car at a street market on Piazza Dalmazia, north of the city centre, and firing off three shots that instantly killed two vendors and seriously wounded a third. The white assailant, identified by authorities as 50-year-old Gianluca Casseri, then moved on to the San Lorenzo market in the centre -- a popular destination for the thousands of tourists who visit Florence every day -- where he wounded two more vendors. Casseri then turned the gun -- a Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver according to news reports -- on himself after he was surrounded by police. Around 200 Senegalese marched through the city in an angry protest after the shootings, shouting "Shame!" and "Racists!" Hundreds of immigrants were later seen praying on their knees in tears in front of Florence's famous cathedral.

"The heart of Florence is crying today," Florence Mayor Matteo Renzi said in a Twitter message, declaring the city would hold a day of mourning Wednesday and would pay to repatriate the bodies to Senegal. "I think the pain for the lives that have been cut short is not only for the Senegalese community but for all the citizens of our city," Renzi said. International Cooperation and Integration Minister Andrea Riccardi and a Senegalese imam will attend a ceremony at Florence city hall on Wednesday. "The Senegalese are good people, people who never get into trouble, who work every day," one Senegalese man told news channel SkyTG24. Another man said: "These lads who were killed were only earning money for their wives, their fathers, their children." Roccangelo Tritto, a spokesman for local Carabinieri police, told AFP that the man wounded at Piazza Dalmazia would live but remain paralysed for life. The other two men were also in a serious condition -- one with a wound to the abdomen and another shot in the chest.

Casseri was the author of fantasy novels including "The Key of Chaos" about a wizard, a mathematician and an alchemist, which enjoyed some popularity. He also wrote an academic paper about Dracula folklore and was the editor of a niche magazine about fantasy and horror fiction and comics. Casseri lived on his own in the Tuscan countryside near Pistoia. He was also a member of Casa Pound, a right-wing community group that is seen as more intellectual than other far-right organisations. "He was a bit strange, a bit of a loner but he didn't seem crazy. He was living in his own world," said Fabio Barsanti, a regional coordinator for Casa Pound. "He didn't seem capable of doing something like this," he said, adding: "We are against any type of violence. We consider the Senegalese humans like us." Barsanti said Casseri was known locally mostly as a World War I buff. While Casa Pound distanced itself from Casseri's actions, left-wingers were quick to pin the blame on a climate of racism in the country. Walter Veltroni, a lawmaker from the centre-left Democratic Party, said the shootings were "a terrorist attack by a right-wing extremist." "What happened in Florence is the product of a climate of intolerance against foreigners that has grown over the years," he said.


Nichi Vendola, leader of the Left, Ecology and Liberty party, condemned what he said was "a racist and fascist Italy that sows hatred." At the scene of the first shooting in Piazza Dalmazia, eyewitnesses quoted by Italian media said they were in shock and a newspaper seller said the gunman told him: "Get out of the way or I'll bump you off next." "I heard the shots but I thought they were fireworks. Then I turned around and I saw three men on the ground in a pool of blood," one vendor said. Another man said: "There are often Senegalese guys here who sell the usual stuff, they don't bother anyone and no one was expecting this." African vendors can be seen on the streets of Italy's main cities selling sculptures, trinkets and fake designer handbags. They are often selling their wares illegally but are popular with tourists and local residents.

martes, 13 de diciembre de 2011

German Nazis killed Israeli Rabbi in Zurich.

Investigators suspect that a neo-Nazi terror group responsible for a series of murders in Germany may also have been behind the unexplained killing of a 70-year-old Israeli rabbi in Zurich a decade ago.

The prosecutor's office in Karlsruhe has tasked a special investigator with examining links between extremists in Switzerland and the National Socialist Underground (NSU), the German neo-Nazi terrorist group responsible for at least ten murders from 2000 to 2007.

According to the Basler Zeitung newspaper, so far there is no hard evidence that the NSU had a hand in the killing of Rabbi Abraham Grünbaum. But the group is known to have had contact with Swiss extremists and the 2001 shooting coincided with a short burst of deadly NSU activity. Additionally, the methods used in the slaying resembled those favoured by the Zwickau-based German terrorist group.

Though police declined to confirm on the record that they suspected the NSU was involved in the killing, a Zurich police spokesman told the Basler Zeitung they were looking into the matter.
“Whenever similar crimes happen we, of course, examine whether there could be links to unsolved homicides in our jurisdiction,” the spokesman said.

The Israeli orthodox rabbi was shot twice in the upper part of his body on June 7, 2001 from a range of less than two metres. At the time it was suspected that anti-Semitism could have been a motive but that could never be proven. However, nothing was stolen from the rabbi. Police briefly detained one man on suspicion of committing the killing, but he was released without charges.

That summer also saw similar killings by the terrorist cell of three Turks: a tailor in Nuremberg, a fruit seller in Hamburg and the owner of a small business in Munich.

The terrorists also met with like-minded people in several cantons in the German-speaking part ofSwitzerland, the Basler Zeitung reported.

Witnesses reported they drove a vehicle with Swiss number plates during their travels across northern Germany. Additionally, the weapon they allegedly used to kill eight Turks and one Greek over the course of the last decade, a Ceska 83, was purchased in canton Solothurn inSwitzerland, the newspaper said.

There could be trouble ahead


In 2008 the world dodged a second Depression by avoiding the mistakes that led to the first. But there are further lessons to be learned for both Europe and America.


“YOU’RE right, we did it,” Ben Bernanke told Milton Friedman in a speech celebrating the Nobel laureate’s 90th birthday in 2002. He was referring to Mr Friedman’s conclusion that central bankers were responsible for much of the suffering in the Depression. “But thanks to you,” the future chairman of the Federal Reserve continued, “we won’t do it again.” Nine years later Mr Bernanke’s peers are congratulating themselves for delivering on that promise. “We prevented a Great Depression,” the Bank of England’s governor, Mervyn King, told the Daily Telegraph in March this year.

The shock that hit the world economy in 2008 was on a par with that which launched the Depression. In the 12 months following the economic peak in 2008, industrial production fell by as much as it did in the first year of the Depression. Equity prices and global trade fell more. Yet this time no depression followed. Although world industrial output dropped by 13% from peak to trough in what was definitely a deep recession, it fell by nearly 40% in the 1930s. American and European unemployment rates rose to barely more than 10% in the recent crisis; they are estimated to have topped 25% in the 1930s. This remarkable difference in outcomes owes a lot to lessons learned from the Depression.

Debate continues as to what made the Depression so long and deep. Some economists emphasise structural factors such as labour costs. Amity Shlaes, an economic historian, argues that “government intervention helped make the Depression Great.” She notes that President Franklin Roosevelt criminalised farmers who sold chickens too cheaply and “generated more paper than the entire legislative output of the federal government since 1789”. Her book, “The Forgotten Man”, is hugely influential among America’s Republicans. Newt Gingrich loves it.

A more common view among economists, however, is that the simultaneous tightening of fiscal and monetary policy turned a tough situation into an awful one. Governments made no such mistake this time round. Where leaders slashed budgets and central banks raised rates in the 1930s, policy was almost uniformly expansionary after the crash of 2008. Where international co-operation fell apart during the Depression, leading to currency wars and protectionism, leaders hung together in 2008 and 2009. Sir Mervyn has a point.

Look closer, however, and the picture is less comforting. For in two important—and related—areas, the rich world could still make mistakes that were also made in the 1930s. It risks repeating the fiscal tightening that produced America’s “recession within a depression” of 1937-38. And the crisis in Europe looks eerily similar to the financial turmoil of the late 1920s and early 1930s, in which economies fell like dominoes under pressure from austerity, tight money and the lack of a lender of last resort. There are, in short, further lessons to be learned.

Riding for a fall

It was far easier to stimulate the economy in the 2000s than in the 1930s. Social safety nets—introduced in the aftermath of the Depression—mean that today’s unemployed have money to spend, providing a cushion against recession without any active intervention. States are more relaxed about running deficits, and control much larger shares of national economies. The package of public works, spending and tax cuts that President Herbert Hoover introduced after the crash of 1929 amounted to less than 0.5% of GDP. President Barack Obama’s stimulus plan, by contrast, was equivalent to 2-3% of GDP in both 2009 and 2010. Hoover’s entire budget covered only about 2.5% of GDP; Mr Obama’s takes 25% of GDP and runs a deficit of 10%.

Roosevelt raised spending to 10.7% of output in 1934, by which point the American economy was growing strongly. By 1936 inflation-adjusted GDP was back to 1929 levels. Just how much the New Deal spending helped the recovery is still debated. Some economists, such as John Cochrane of the University of Chicago and Robert Barro of Harvard, say not at all. Fiscal measures never work, they say.

Those who think that fiscal measures do work nonetheless tend to believe that, in the 1930s, spending was less important than monetary policy, which they see as the prime cause of suffering. In a paper in 1989 Mr Bernanke and Martin Parkinson, now the top civil servant in Australia’s finance ministry, wrote that rather than providing recovery itself “the New Deal is better characterised as having ‘cleared the way’ for a natural recovery.” Others, such as Paul Krugman, would ascribe a more positive role to stimulus spending.

Whatever relative importance is assigned to monetary and fiscal policy, though, there is little doubt that their simultaneous tightening five years into the Depression led to a vicious relapse. Spurred by his treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau—who worried in 1935 that “we cannot help but be riding for a fall unless we continue to decrease our deficit each year and the budget is balanced”—Roosevelt urged fiscal restraint on Congress in 1937.

By that point the national debt had reached an unheard of 40% of GDP (huge by the standards of the day, but half what Germany’s debt is now). Congress cut spending, increased taxes and wiped out a deficit of 5.5% of GDP between 1936 and 1938. That was a larger consolidation than Greece now faces over two years (see chart 1), but is much smaller than what is planned for it in the longer term. At the same time the Federal Reserve doubled reserve requirements between mid-1936 and mid-1937, encouraging banks to pull money out of the economy. The Treasury began to restrict the money supply in step with the level of gold imports. In 1937 and 1938, the recession within a depression brought a drop in real GDP of 11% and an additional four percentage points of unemployment, which peaked at 13% or 19%, depending on how you count it.

The Snowdens of yesteryear

Today’s monetary policy hasn’t turned contractionary, as America’s did in the 1930s. AsThe Economist went to press, the European Central Bank (ECB) was expected to announce a further reduction in interest rates. But in many places fiscal policy is moving rapidly in that direction. Mr Obama’s stimulus is winding down; state- and local-government cuts continue. Republican candidates for the presidency echo the arguments of Mr Morgenthau, claiming that deficit-financed stimulus spending has done little but add to the obligations of future taxpayers. Mr Obama, like Roosevelt, has started to stress the need for budget-cutting. If the current payroll-tax cut and emergency unemployment benefits were to lapse, growth over the next year would be reduced by around one percentage point of GDP.

America is not alone. Under David Cameron, Britain’s hugely indebted government introduced a harsh programme of fiscal consolidation in 2010 to avert a loss of confidence in its creditworthiness. The rationale was similar to that for chancellor Philip Snowden’s emergency austerity budget of 1931, with its tax rises and spending cuts. On that occasion confidence was not restored, and Britain was forced to devalue the pound and abandon the gold standard. On this occasion the measures have indeed boosted investor confidence, and thus bond yields; that the country still faces a second recession is in large part due to the euro zone’s woes. That said, the possibility of such shocks should always be a counsel for caution when a government embarks on fiscal tightening.

Some say tightening need not hurt. In 2009 Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna of Harvard published a paper claiming that austerity could be expansionary, particularly if focused on spending cuts, not tax increases. Budget cuts that reduce interest rates stimulate private borrowing and investment, and by changing expectations about future tax burdens governments can also boost growth. Others doubt it. An International Monetary Fund (IMF) study in July this year found that Mr Alesina and Ms Ardagna misidentified episodes of austerity and thus overstated the benefits of budget cuts, which typically bring contraction not expansion.

Roberto Perotti of Bocconi University has studied examples of expansion at times of austerity and showed that it is almost always attributable to rising exports associated with currency depreciation. In the 1930s the contractionary impact of America’s fiscal cuts was mitigated to some extent by an improvement in net exports; America’s trade balance swung from a deficit of 0.2% of GDP to a surplus of 1.1% of GDP between 1936 and 1938. Now, most of the world is cutting budgets and not every economy can reduce the pain by boosting exports.

The importance of monetary policy in the 1930s might suggest that central banks could offset the effects of fiscal cuts. In 2010 the IMF wrote that Britain’s expansionary monetary policy should mitigate the contractionary impact of big budget cuts and “establish the basis for sustainable recovery”. Yet Britain is now close to recession and unemployment is rising, suggesting limits to what a central bank can do.

The move to austerity is most dramatic within the euro zone—which can least afford it. Operating without floating currencies or a lender of last resort, its present predicament carries painful echoes of the gold-standard world of the early 1930s.

In the mid-1920s, after an initially untenable schedule of war reparations payments was revised, French and American creditors struck by the possibility of rapid growth in the battered German economy began to pile in. The massive flow of capital helped fund Germany’s sovereign obligations and led to soaring wages. Germany underwent a credit-driven boom like those seen on the European periphery in the mid-2000s.

In 1928 and 1929 the party ended and the flow of capital reversed. First, investors sent their money to America to bet on its soaring market. Then they yanked it out of Germany in response to financial panic. To defend its gold reserves, Germany’s Reichsbank was forced to raise interest rates. Suddenly deprived of foreign money, and unable to rely on exports for growth as the earlier boom generated an unsustainable rise in wages, Germany turned to austerity to meet its obligations, as Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Spain have done. A country with a floating currency could expect a silver lining to capital outflows: the exchange rate would fall, boosting exports. But Germany’s exchange rate was fixed by the gold standard. Competitiveness could only be restored through a slow decline in wages, which occurred even as unemployment rose.

As the screws tightened, banks came under pressure. The Austrian economy faced troubles like those in Germany, and in 1931 the failure of Austria’s largest bank, Credit Anstalt, triggered a loss of confidence in the banks that quickly spread. As pressure built in Germany, the leaders of the largest economies repeatedly met to discuss the possibility of assistance for the flailing economy. But the French, in particular, would brook no reduction in Germany’s debt and reparations payments.

Recognising that the absence of a lender of last resort was fuelling panic, the governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman, proposed the creation of an international lender. He recommended a fund be set up and capitalised with $250m, to be leveraged up by an additional $750m and empowered to lend to governments and banks in need of capital. The plan, probably too modest, went nowhere because France and America, owners of the gold needed for the leveraging, didn’t like it.

So the dominoes fell. Just two months after the Credit Anstalt bankruptcy a big German bank, Danatbank, failed. The government was forced to introduce capital controls and suspend gold payments, in effect unpegging its currency. Germany’s economy collapsed, and the horrors of the 1930s began.

It is all dreadfully familiar (though no European country is about to elect another Hitler). Membership in the euro zone, like adherence to the gold standard, means that uncompetitive countries can’t devalue their currencies to reduce trade deficits. Austerity brings with it a vicious circle of decline, squeezing domestic demand and raising unemployment, thereby hurting revenues, sustaining big deficits and draining away confidence in banks and sovereign debt. As residents of the periphery move their money to safer banks in the core, the money supply declines, just as it did in the 1930s (see chart 2). High-level meetings with creditor nations bring no surcease. There is no lender of last resort. Though the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) has got further off the ground than Norman’s scheme, which it chillingly resembles, euro-zone leaders have yet to find a way to leverage its €440 billion up to €2 trillion.

Even if they succeed, that may be too little to end the panic. Investors driven by turmoil in Italian markets are pre-emptively reducing their exposure to banks and sovereign bonds elsewhere in the euro zone. Even countries with relatively robust economies such as France and the Netherlands have not been spared. No matter how secure an economy’s fiscal position, a short-term liquidity crunch driven by panic can drive it into insolvency.

History need not repeat itself. Norman’s Bank of England was created in the 17th century to lend to the government when necessary; central banks have always been obliged to lend to governments when others will not. The ECB could take on this role. It is prohibited by its charter from buying debt directly from governments, but it can purchase debt securities on the secondary market. It has been doing so piecemeal and could declare its intention to do so systematically. Its power to create an unlimited amount of money would allow it credibly to announce its willingness to buy any bonds markets want to sell, thus removing the main cause of panic and contagion.

This week France and Germany proposed the adoption of legally binding budgetary “golden rules” by euro-zone members, ahead of a summit of European leaders in Brussels on December 8th-9th. Mario Draghi, the ECB’s new president, has hinted that were a fiscal pact to be agreed, the ECB might buy bonds on a larger scale. What scale he has in mind, though, is unclear. Jens Weidmann, president of Germany’s Bundesbank and an influential member of the ECB’s governing council, has clearly stated that the ECB “must not be” the euro zone’s lender of last resort.

Where this path leads

On the present course, conditions in developed economies look like getting worse before they get better. Growth in America and Britain will probably be less than 2% in 2012 on current policy, and in both recession is quite possible. A euro-zone recession is likely. The ECB could improve the euro zone’s economic outlook by loosening its monetary policy, but widespread austerity and uncertainty will be difficult to overcome. As in 1931 and 2008, a grave financial crisis may cause a large drop in output. That, in turn, would place more pressure on euro-zone economies struggling to avoid default.

As panic built in 1931, country after country faced capital flight. The effort to defend against bank and currency runs prompted rounds of austerity and plummeting money supplies in pressured economies, helping generate the collapse in output and employment that turned a nasty downturn into a Depression. It took the end of the gold standard, which freed central banks to expand the money supply and reflate their economies, to spark recovery. Today the ECB has the tools needed to salvage the situation without breaking up the euro. But the fact that the ECB and euro-zone governments have options does not mean that they will take them.

The collapse of the gold standard led to recovery, but caused terrible economic damage as countries erected trade barriers to stem the flood of imports from those that had devalued their currencies. Governments elected to fight unemployment experimented with wage and price controls, cartelisation of industry and other interventions that often impeded the recovery enabled by expansionary monetary and fiscal policies. In the worst-hit countries long-suffering citizens turned to fascism in the false hope of relief.

The world today is better placed to cope with disaster than it was in the 1930s. Then, most large economies were on the gold standard. Today, the euro zone represents less than 15% of world output. In developed countries unemployment, scourge though it is, does not lead to utter destitution as it did in the 1930s. Then, the world lacked a global leader; today, America is probably still up to the job of co-ordinating disaster response in troubled times. International institutions are much stronger, and democracy is more firmly entrenched.

Even so, prolonged economic weakness is contributing to a broad rethinking of the value of liberal capitalism. Countries scrapping for scarce demand are now intervening in currency markets—the Swiss are fed up with their franc appreciating against the euro. America’s Senate has sought to punish China for currency manipulation with tariffs. Within Europe the turmoil of the euro crisis is encouraging ugly nationalists, some of them racist. Their extremism is mild when compared with the continent-wrecking horrors of Nazism, but that hardly makes it welcome.

The situation is not yet beyond repair. But the task of repairing it grows harder the longer it is delayed. The lessons of the 1930s spared the world a lot of economic pain after the shock of the 2008 financial crisis. It is not too late to recall other critical lessons of the Depression. Ignore them, and history may well repeat itself.


www.economist.com

miércoles, 7 de diciembre de 2011

THE CLIMB OF THE FASCIST LA.O.S. PARTY TO THE GOVERNMENT CONSTITUTES A FASCIST DEVIATION

THE NEW VICE MINISTER OF MARITIME AFFAIRS AND HIS “FAVORITE” BOOK

The Antinazi Initiative condemns the agreement of the two big parties to offer the fascist LAOS party 4 ministries and sub-ministries of the new government as a fascist deviation. The ANI also condemns the general acceptance LAOS has won so far, being presented as a normal parliamentary party by the other parliamentary parties, including the so called leftish ones, as part of this deviation.

Among the 4 governmental cadres, Adonis Georgiadis stands as the new vice minister of Maritime Affairs. A. Georgiadis has a special preference that, in any democratic country would have closed the way for him to any public office. This is his preference for a book he had been promoting on TV until a few years ago as his “favorite” one. This is the book of nazi K. Plevris, the fanatically pro-Hitler genocidal guide “Jews, the whole truth” *.

As to the new minister of transport, M. Voridis, he is an ex-leader of the pro-junta (1967-1974) EPEN political youth.

In any democratic country, the party that backed a propagandist of nazism and of cannibalistic anti-Semitism, such as K. Plevris, would not climb to power. It was not just A.Georgiadis that promoted a book praising national-socialism and the III Reich. Thanos Plevris, a LAOS MP and the son of K. Plevris, played a leading part as his defence counsel at the trial of K. Plevris for violation of the anti-racist law. Th. Plevris demanded the aquittal of the accused nazi writer by the judges, saying that no Greek citizen should be deprived of the right to call for the extermination of any other people or the right to revive Auschwitz (!) The LAOS youth overtly called for the support of K. Plevris at trial, from its internet forum while, at the last phase of the trial, an article of the official party “A1” newspaper by the head of LAOS, G. Karatzaferis, came to the conclusion that the “Jew smells blood”.

In a democratic country, the party the leader of which had served as the nazis-rise-to-power assistant would never come to power. In 1998, G. Karatzaferis, being at the time MP with the New Democracy party, called upon the nazis of Chrysi Avgi (Golden Dawn) to claim a sub-ministry; in 2002 prefecture elections, he included 4 Ch. Avgi members in the LAOS ballot list, and in 2009 he tried to put down the name of the ex vice-leader of Ch. Avgi, D. Zafiropoulos, for the parliamentary elections ballot in Achaea perfecture. It was only due to the Antinazi Initiatives protest that some light was shed on the last two attempts, thus leading them to failure.

The LAOS-nazis association is ideologically based on their common racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Just a couple of months ago, Karatzaferis in his speech for the 76thInternational Fair of Salonica explained how all illegal immigrants should be expelled because the country “belongs to pure Greeks, to Greeks that love the motherland, that love the nation, that love orthodoxy, that fight for Greece”. When Karatzaferis talks about “pure Greeks”, everybody understands what he insinuates, that is “pure” in blood, the “national loyalty” following as well, and of course the orthodox Christian religion. Otherwise, to Karatzaferis’ point of view, the “non pure” Greek has no place in the country.

The LAOS partys climb to power wasn’t the result of political chance or the economic crisis. It was rooted in that the political character of LAOS has never been condemned by the other parliamentary parties. If such a thing had happened, its entrance to the parliament could have been initially averted.

The totality of parliamentary parties have protected LAOS, as they have not only abstained from condemning LAOS for giving support to the nazi K. Plevris, but also didn’t ask for his conviction at all, and muffled this trial in silence. Then, they covered with silence both the prosecutors and judges that defended K. Plevris at the trial, by expressing anti-Semitic and pro-nazi positions, and the final abject not guilty verdict of the Athens Court of Appeals, that has also been approved by the High Court. According to the verdict, K. Plevris is innocent because among other things, he doesn’t call for the extermination of the Jews just because they belong to a particular race or nationality but because they conspire for the global dominance. That is, they consider as non racism the core of modern, hitlerian-type anti-Semitism, which is exactly the theory of the global Jewish conspiracy. This means that the extermination of Jews not only is considered a non-racist crime, but could also be justified so long as one believes that the Jews, men, women and children seek or will seek global domination, virtually motivated by the nature of their religion.

The same stance towards the nazis thugs of Chrysi Avgi has been kept by the parliamentary parties, as they have for years offered them the status of a legal political party and always meet with them for the distribution of free TV time during the electoral periods. Recently, they allowed its leader, N. Michaloliakos, to occupy a seat in theMunicipal Council of Athens. This happened bevause at the last municipal elections, they left the scene for Ch. Avgi so that it presented itself as a “patriotic” party that was thought to protect the citizens of Saint Panteleimonas ward from the illegal migrants. Later, they turned a blind eye to the recorded fact that N. Michaloliakos saluted the nazi way two times inside the Municipal Council hall. Recently, they allowed the members of Ch. Avgi to march as part of a students parade inside Attica, in Artemida, “honoring the anti-fascist anniversary.

In general, we have recently discovered that, as a result of the parliamentary parties’ consent to the propagandists of national-socialism and of cannibalistic anti-Semitism, a series of fascist incidents, such as the anti-semitic statements by the Piraeus bishop and by the DAKE secondary school teachers’ union organization in Messinia, as well as the national-chauvinistic slogans of the special forces’ parade on 3/25/2010, were being “legalized”. At the same time, we have noticed that the political system promotes political bonds with Putins Russia, which is today the international center of anti-semitism and neonazism, with LAOS being the warmest supporter. The peak of this approach was the parade of the Russian army in Alexandroupoli on 10/28.

The Antinazi Initiative calls upon every democratic citizen to resist the advancing fascism. It is a pressing need today that we fight for:

  • The condemnation of LA.O.S. as a fascist and anti-Semitic party and the expulsion of its appointed through political agreement cadres from the government.
  • The condemnation of the rest parliamentary parties for the protection they have given LA.O.S., as they keep its reactionary political character of a party protecting and cooperating with nazis hidden from the people.
  • Taking action for the annulment of Athens Court’s of Appeal decision, which has legalized nazism and has been upheld by the High Court.
  • The removal of the judges having expressed anti-Semitic and pro-nazi positions from the bench.
  • Banning the nazi gang of Chrysi Avgi.

*Watch the relative video at jungle-report.blogspot.com or at this link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ9bYnrnCNE

jueves, 1 de diciembre de 2011

Stop Hate Crime!

Resolution by participants of the International Conference“Stop Hate Crime! NGO Approaches to Victim Assistance and Monitoring in Europe”concerning efforts in the St Petersburg City Legislative Assembly to introduce prohibition of the so-called "propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism, transgenderism to minors"22-25 November 2011, Berlin

Vadim Tulpanov, Chair of St Petersburg Legislative Assembly; Georgy Poltavchenko (Governorof St Petersburg), Alexei Kozyrev (Ombudsman for Human Rights - St Petersburg) Vladimir Lukin (Ombudsman for Human Rights - Russian Federation).

1. We the undersigned are shocked by the introduction by legislative assembly members of the "United Russia" party to introduce legal measures to prohibit the so-called "propaganda of sodomy, lesbianism, bisexualism, transgenderism to minors" and "pedophilia", respectively.

2. We believe that the association of two articles (7.1 and 7.2) with the same penalties and sanctions equates "homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people" with the perpetration of illegal and immoral and criminal sexual offences against children is a slur and propaganda against LGBT people. We, the undersigned are utterly opposed to sexual offences against children.

3. This association of "homosexuals" with sexual offences against children is another part of propaganda against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender (LGBT) people which will spread misinformation and generate negative attitudes and “hate crime” including violence against LGBT people within St Petersburg and beyond. This is consistent with the experience in other countries around the world. Moreover, the ban of disseminating information on sexual orientation and gender identity may also hamper advocacy for effective investigation of hatecrime against LGBT people.

4. We are concerned that similar laws have been passed in Ryazan and Archangelsk and that members of the Legislative Assembly have suggested a Federal law, which will extend such tragic consequences across the whole of the Russian Federation and lead to the further isolation and suffering of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people.

5. We believe that such laws that prohibit open discussion on any subject are a denial of freedom of speech and therefore of democracy and are inconsistent with the UN International Bill of Human Rights, the European Convention for Human Rights, and place Russia in breach of her international treaty obligations.

6. Sexual orientation and gender identity are fundamental characteristics, and no one should be discriminated against on any ground.

7. We call on the Saint Petersburg Legislative Assembly to dismiss the proposed bill and instead focus its energies on adopting comprehensive antidiscrimination legislation that includes sexual orientation and gender identity among the protected categories. This law must also be replicated on a federal level.

Signatories
(in alphabetical order of the organization)
 Nekozakova Anastasya, ADC "Memorial", Russia
 Timo Reinfrank, Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Germany
 Witold Klaus, Association for Legal Intervention, Poland
 F.Levent Sensever, Erkin Erdogan, Association for Social Change, Turkey
 Miroslawa Makuchowska, Campaign against Homophobia, Poland
 Britta Schellenberg, Centre for Applied Policy Research, Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich, Germany
 Anna Lenchovska, Congress of National Minorities, Ukraine
 Markéta Kovarikova, Czech Helsinki Committee, Czech Republic
 Timm Köhler, Program Manager “Stop Hate Crime!”, Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (Foundation EVZ), Germany
 Joël Le Déroff, Ilga Europe, Belgium
 Suzette Bronkhorst, INACH, Netherlands
 Martina Dvořáková, Klará Kalibová, In IUSTITIA, o.s. Czech Republic
 Miroslav Bohdalek, Kulturbüro Sachsen e.V., Germany
 Jay Keim, Lesbenberatung Berlin e.V. (Lesbian Counseling Centre Berlin), Germany
 Kumar Vishwanathan, Life Together, Czech Republic
 Ronald Eissens, Magenta Foundation, Netherlands
 Suresh Grover, The Monitoring Group, Great Britain
 Miguel Callejo, Movement against intolerance, Spain
 Andriy Maymulakhin, Alexandr Zinchenkov, Nash Mir, Ukraine
 Alena Krempaska, People Against Racism, Slovakia
 Flaminia Bartolini, ReachOut Berlin
 Benjamin Abtan, SOS Racisme, France
 Maria Rozalskaya, SOVA Center for Information and Analysis, Russia
 Julia Ehrt, Transgender Europe, Austria
 Valentin Gonzalez, United for International Action, Netherlands
 Dr. Neil Chakraborti, University of Leicester, Great Britain
 Maxim Efimov, Youth Human Rights Group, Karelia, Russia
 Konstantin Baranov, international Youth Human Rights Movement (YHRM), Russia
 Frauke Büttner, Politologue, Freelancer, Germany
 Ute Weinmann, Russia

Kristalnacht in Highland Park New Jersey, Jewish businesses destroyed.


Police have arrested a New Brunswick man in connection with vandalism against Jewish-owned and Jewish-centric businesses in Highland Park, N.J.

Authorities charged Richard M. Green, 59, with five counts of criminal mischief, according to Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office. Police believe he smashed the windows of five businesseson Raritan Avenue overnight.

"The on-going investigation is seeking to determine if Green is responsible for other acts of criminal mischief that have occurred in the past several days," according to a statement from the prosecutor's office. "Upon completion of the investigation, a decision will be made on whether Green will be charged with other incidents, and whether the criminal mischief counts will be upgraded to a bias crime."

The preliminary investigation determined that the shops that were targeted are Jewish businessesthat trade in such items as clothing, food and religious items and are owned by Jewish merchants.

A kosher pizzeria, a restaurant, a Judaica store, a hardware store, and one other shop were vandalized, according to the Elder of Ziyon blog.

No graffiti or offensive slogans or symbols were found on the storefronts, according to police.

Police said it is "too soon to reach a conclusion" that the vandalism was motivated by anti-Semitism, but if the investigation reveals that then Green could face bias charges.

"All of our officers are aware of the sensitivity of this situation and we will make every effort with patrols and surveillance to keep everyone safe," police said in the statement.

Vandals also targeted three locations in New Brunswick Tuesday, according to the blog. Police are investigating if Green was involved in those incidents.

The cost of the damage was not immediately available.

Police distributed fliers to the community today advising residents to remain calm and assured them that an intensive investigation has been launched.

If you have any information about this incident you can contact the Highland Park Police Department at 732-572-3800.

The vandalism follows a string of swastika paintings in Brooklyn and Queens and the arson of several vehicles in Brooklyn accompanied by anti-Semitic graffiti.

jueves, 24 de noviembre de 2011

ESTONIA: NAZI SAFE HAVEN

Sixty-five years after many fascist leaders were sentenced to execution or prison, Estonia is in the spotlight for neo-Nazi activity acting as a shelter for several convicted war criminals. ­With SS marches regularly held throughout the state, many fear the country is increasingly embracing one of history’s darkest chapters. One of the marchers – Mikhail Gorshkov – is ranked eighth on Simon Weisenthal’s list of most wanted Nazi war criminals. “He directly participated in a murder of 3,000 Jews in Belarus in 1940s. Documents proving it were provided to the Estonian authorities,” says the chairman of anti-fascist committee of Estonia, Andrey Zarenkov.


Estonia’s anti-fascist committee says the proof of Gorshkov’s atrocities in a Belarusian concentration camp is solid and undoubted. But instead of seeing off his days from behind bars, he now lives the life of a free man in this Baltic state. “Gorshkov was deported from the US and stripped of US citizenship. That says a lot, doesn’t it? Tallinn gave him shelter and tried to hide him here, but then under international pressure the authorities had to initiate an investigation,” Zarenkov reveals. However, the probe yielded no results. After months of investigation, Estonian authorities closed the case.


The advisor of the Office of Estonian Prosecutor General Carol Merzin said that “A well-grounded doubt remains that the Gorshkov mentioned in the materials is not the Mikhail Gorshkov who is at present a citizen of the Republic of Estonia. The case will be closed, as it has been impossible for the investigative team to to find any additional evidence.” The decision raised eyebrows in Israel – at first. But then Simon Wiesenthal’s center recalled which country they were dealing with. “I called Washington, spoke the people who handled his prosecution case whether they had any doubt about [Mikhail Gorshkov’s] identity. And they said no, none whatsoever,” insists Efraim Zurov from the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “This doesn’t surprise me personally, because for the last 15 years I’ve been dealing with the Estonians. The Estonians have totally failed in terms of prosecuting Nazi war criminals. It seems there’s no will in Tallinn to bring these people to justice.”


And the Gorshkov story is not a one-off case. From sanctioning SS veterans’ marches to glorifying former Nazi collaborators – this has been Tallinn’s policy for the past decade. Recently, one man made just about every headline in Estonia. Almost on a scale of a national holiday, in October the country marked the 90th birthday of Harald Nugiseks, the only remaining holder of the Iron Cross, one of the highest awards in Nazi Germany. The Nuremberg Tribunal sentenced the Nazi leadership to either executions or prison terms 65 years ago. This trial of history was meant to get rid of Nazism for good. But the SS marches in Baltic states, and other cases of rehabilitation of fascism nowadays, suggest that history lessons have not been fully learned.

martes, 22 de noviembre de 2011

ANTI-RACISM GROUPS TARGET EURO 2012

Anti-racist campaigners are working to ensure that next summer's European Championship in Poland and Ukraine does not become the next flashpoint after the recent series of events involving players, supporters and administrators. On Friday, Uefa fined the Bulgarian FA €40,000 (£34,000) for the latest instance of racist abuse suffered by England players in eastern Europe, following similar occurrences against Croatia, Slovakia and Serbia. Earlier this year a report highlighted 195 cases of football-related incidents of racism and discrimination in the two host countries for Euro 2012 during an 18-month period It said: "In Ukraine we urge extreme vigilance by the authorities towards the presence of far-right groups, who we believe will be active and visible during the Euros next year. We are pleased to be working with the local organising committees in both countries through the Uefa social responsibility programme for 2012."

The London-based group Football Against Racism in Europe (Fare) co-ordinated a series of events in the two countries last month aimed at raising awareness. It included training at the National Stadium in Warsaw for stewards in recognising racist and fascist symbols of Polish extreme right-wing movements, who have often used footballas a recruiting ground. Anti-semitism has also been a problem in Poland,and Legia Warsaw were fined €10,000 (£8,540) by Uefa last week after an offensive banner was displayed attheir Europa League game against Hapoel Tel Aviv. According to Fare, there have also been instances of racism in the past at Lviv, one of the four Ukranian 2012 venues and a specially arrangedmulti-racial game were held there and in Warsaw last month.

jueves, 17 de noviembre de 2011

Germany shocked by secret service link to rightwing terror cell

Undercover officer was at scene of Turk's murder as rightwingers killed 10 times but stayed free for 13 years.

An agent working for Germany's answer to MI5 was at the scene of one of the 10 murders carried out by neo-Nazi terrorists, the domestic intelligence agency has confirmed, fuelling speculation that the killers' movements were known to the authorities during their 13 years on the run.

The undercover officer was in an internet cafe in the central city of Kassel in Hessen when a 21-year-old Turk was shot at point blank range on 6 April 2006, a spokesman for the Hessen branch of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) said on Tuesday.

The admission has added yet more controversy to an already contentious case, which the chancellor, Angela Merkel, has described as "mortifying" for Germany.

The investigation into the activities of the so-called National Socialist Underground was broadened on Tuesday to take in previously unsolved crimes across the country, amid fears that a network of supporters may have helped them carry out further attacks.

These include suspected terror attacks in Cologne and Düsseldorf from 2000 to 2004 that injured more than 30 people, most of them foreigners, and the attempted 2008 murder of a Bavarian police chief who was stabbed by a masked assailant who yelled: "Greetings from the national resistance!".

Critics say German authorities have played down the existence of rightwing extremism, concentrating instead on the threats posed by leftwing terrorists and Islamic fundamentalists. Whether they deliberately turned a blind eye or genuinely did not have a handle on the violence being wrought by neo-Nazis is open to interpretation.

Authorities in the state of Thuringia, where the three key members of the terror cell all come from, admit they have 24 ringbinders full of intelligence on the trio.

"The intelligence service has completely failed," said Hans-Christian Ströbele, a member of the parliamentary committee which monitors Germany's secret service agencies, following an emergency meeting on Tuesday. "It's probably the biggest secret service cock-up since German reunification," said the Berliner Zeitung newspaper in an editorial.

The scandal has gripped Germany for days as the country struggles to understand how the rightwing terror cell managed to evade capture for so long despite being apparently responsible for 10 murders, including the death of a policewoman, at least 14 bank robberies and two vicious nail bomb attacks between 2000 and 2007. The group has been dubbed the Brown Army Faction, a reference to the Red Army Faction, also known as the Baader Meinhof gang, a leftwing terrorist group that committed a series of murders in the 1970s and 80s. In Germany, brown remains a colour inextricably linked with the Nazi uniform.

The case came to light earlier this month when two known neo-Nazis, Uwe Mundlos, 38, and Uwe Böhnhardt, 34, were found shot dead in a burnt out campervan in what appeared to be a twin suicide pact. Hours later, their flat in the quiet suburbs of the east German town of Zwickau was blown up, an explosion detonated by alleged accomplice Beate Zschäpe, 36, who turned herself into police days later.

When investigators searched the charred remains of the van and the house, they found a number of highly incriminating pieces of evidence, including the gun carried by Michele Kiesewetter, the 22-year-old police officer believed to have been shot dead in Heilbronn, Baden-Württemberg in 2007. They also discovered a bizarre Pink Panther-inspired homemade DVD gloating that the National Socialist Underground was responsible for a series of unsolved murders known as the Döner Killings, which targeted mostly Turkish immigrants in Germany, some of whom worked in fast food stalls, between 2000 and 2006.

Until now, German detectives have suggested that foreign gangs, probably from Turkey, were responsible for the murders: their investigation was even codenamed Operation Bosphorus.

Relatives of the victims say the reputations of the dead men were besmirched by investigators. Kerim Simsek, whose father Enver was shot down on 9 September 2000, claimed police said his father "was mixed up with the mafia and smuggled drugs – no one even mentioned a rightwing extremist motive," he told Bild.

Ströbele said Germany's elite had totally underestimated the threat of rightwing terrorism. "They have been determined to play it down. Just a few weeks ago, Hans-Peter Friedrich, the interior minister, was saying there was no rightwing terrorism in Germany," he said. "They are always very quick to jump to conclusions if they think leftwing terrorists or Islamist fundamentalists are responsible for a crime and yet they didn't want to believe there could be a serious problem with neo-Nazis."

Ströbele said that 160 officers worked on Operation Bosphorus, investigating 11,000 people "Why didn't they follow the trail to rightwing radicals?" he said, as he called for a thorough investigation to discover how the terror cell managed to evade capture. More information was needed to establish how and why the secret service agent was in the Kassel internet cafe when the shots were fired in 2006, he said. Until now, the agent has insisted it was an unhappy coincidence he was at the crime scene "either during the murder or within a minute or two of it", said Ströbele.

The agent was arrested after other witnesses noticed he was the only customer who failed to call the police. After being questioned as a suspect, he confessed his identity and no charges were brought. A spokesman for Hessen's BfV said he was subsequently moved out of intelligence work and into a less sensitive department of Hessen's regional council.

The national BfV continues to deny any contact with the three suspects or any knowledge of their whereabouts since 1998, when a warrant was issued for their arrest following the discovery of a bomb-making factory in a garage rented by Zschäpe. The Hessen branch said it had found no evidence that its agents were in contact with Mundlos, Böhnhardt and Zschäpe.

Germans try to make sense of scandalGermany has been gripped by the scandal unfolding around the neo-Nazi National Socialist Underground. But so much of what has emerged so far does not quite make sense. Here are some questions ordinary Germans would like answering:

1. Why did Beate Zschäpe decide to turn herself in to the police? Is she hoping to turn supergrass and give state's evidence in return for a shorter sentence?

2. Did Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Böhnhardt really kill themselves? One man was shot in the head; another in the chest (the latter is an unusual form of suicide). Could Zschäpe have murdered them both? Did they set fire to their campervan before killing themselves or did someone else light the match afterwards?

3. Why did the two men burn the money they had apparently stolen from a Zwickauer bank that day rather than give it to Zschäpe?

4. How did the Pink Panther confession DVDs survive flames in the trio's Zwickau flat despite temperatures being so hot that investigators say they found melted guns?

5. How did the National Socialist Underground choose their victims? Were they all chosen at random?

6. Can the group be linked to any other unsolved crimes?

7. Did the authorities have any contact with the group during their 13 years on the run?

8. Why did investigators looking into the nine so-called Doner Killings blame foreign mafia rather than properly investigating rightwing hatred as a motive, considering that all the victims were immigrants?

"I'M NOT RACIST; I HATE MUSLIMS BECAUSE THEY'RE THE ENEMY"

An article written by the neo-Nazi on trial lashes out at "uncontrolled sexual liberation, legitimacy of civil partnerships, promotion of the mentally ill and degenerate queers and dykes."

Jose Antonio G, Secretary General of far-right political party European Nation State (Estado Nacional Europeo or ENE) formed in Barcelona, accused of disseminating Nazi ideology through his magazine, on Tuesday claimed the right to free expression. The accused defended his views and denied to the court that he was a racist, despite admitting his “hate for Muslims because they are the enemy”. The case against José Antonio G, and two other suspected members of the said publication’s editorial board, began in Barcelona’s Penal Court No.7 on Tuesday. The three group members behind the magazine, known as “Intemperie”, face possible prison sentences of four and a half years if found guilty of publishing articles which trivialize and deny the Holocaust and include offensive remarks about the Jews. In defence of one of the published articles, which lashes out at "uncontrolled sexual liberation, the legitimacy of civil partnerships, promotion of the mentally ill and degenerate queers and dykes of the cool type," the neo-Nazi leader claimed it was “an opinion just like so many others which are put forth.”

Illegalization of ENE
In addition to the requested prison terms, the Public Attorney for Hate Crimes and Discrimination, Miguel Ángel Aguilar, requested that the Spanish Home Secretary begin proceedings for the illegalization of ultra right-wing party ENE, as well as for the closure of their website.

martes, 15 de noviembre de 2011

Right-wing extremism an 'infection' that must not be ignored, says activist


The head of a Berlin-based foundation that supports programs against right-wing extremism talks to DW about a new form of far-right terror in Germany, and urges the state to do its job and protect people.


Since 1998, the Berlin-based Amadeu Antonio Foundation has supported civil society programs aimed at fighting right-wing extremism and xenophobia. In an interview with Deutsche Welle, the foundation's head, Anetta Kahane, shares her assessment of the far right's activities in Germany and calls for political action.

DW: Politicians in Germany have now started to talk about a new form of right-wing extremism in light of what's become known about the National Socialist Underground group. Opposition leaders claim the fight against right-wing extremism has been neglected in Germany for decades. Do you share this opinion?

Anetta Kahane: That's right, because this is not a very new situation. These people have been murdering for 10 years, and the question is whether the state did enough to protect the victims. I do not think they did enough; they have to be much more professional in persecuting right-wing extremists.

Apparently, cooperation between local police and intelligence people across the country hasn't been good enough, to say the least. Is this a structural or a political problem?

It's a structural problem. Right-wing extremism has always been ignored if it takes place in East Germany, as if we, in the whole Federal Republic, didn't have to care about what is going on in East Germany.But it has always been our view that if you ignore it in one place, it can happen in other places, too - it's like an infection. And this was the case in Thuringia: the secret service and the police didn't have a professional distance from the neo-Nazi groups and this has been obvious to us for a long time.

Do you view the National Socialist Underground group as only the tip of the iceberg, with many more such ultra-violent groups on the rise in the country?

I don't know - but there are a lot of violent groups and they are ready to kill. If they want to do it, they take their weapons - because they all have weapons - and they will kill people.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's government now stands accused of slashing the budget to fight right-wing extremism. Would increased financial resources be an appropriate way to prevent further activities by dangerous far-right groups, or does it take more to get on top of the problem? What exactly is needed?

This case is a police case. This is not for civil society to resolve. And the police and secret service have to be able to protect the people from this; it is their job, and they have to do their job.On the other hand, of course it's also important to create new projects and establish the old ones to fight right-wing extremism. If people had known more about neo-Nazis and right-wing extremism, they might have been suspicious - but this is the problem: in many of these towns and cities, people don't care, and sometimes, they also agree.

It hasn't really come as a big surprise to see policymakers and organizations across Germany renewing calls to ban the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). Would such a move have a tangible effect at all?

No. I think these militant and criminal murders have nothing to do with the NPD. You can forbid and ban - this is stupid because everyone involved with neo-Nazi issues knows that in these kinds of cases, a ban has no effect. On the contrary, I think there would be much more illegal activity without the NPD party.

National Socialist Underground: Far-Right Terror Group Shocks Germany

Germany's domestic intelligence agency was put on the defensive Monday, amid questions of how a neo-Nazi group that it had been aware of in 1998 could have slipped from its radar and carried out a series of bank robberies and at least 10 murders.

The activities of far-right extremists in Germany have produced a thick chapter in the annual report of the nation's Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution since the 1960s.

Yet despite all the details on membership, crimes committed, structure and even fashion sense of such groups, the authorities were scrambling for information on the Zwickau-based trio calling itself the Nationalist Socialist Underground. Federal prosecutors are now calling it a domestic terror organization suspected of murdering eight Turks and one Greek from 2000 to 2006 and fatally shooting a policewoman in 2007.

In a statement issued Monday, the office insisted that it had no information regarding the whereabouts of the three members – two of whom are now dead in apparent suicides – since last tracking them in 1998.

The third, identified as 36-year-old Beate Z., was formally arrested late Sunday on charges of co-founding and belonging to a terror organization. She is further alleged to have set fire to a house used by the group in an effort to destroy evidence, but has refused to speak with police since turning herself in last week.

Police have been sifting through the remains of that home in the eastern city of Zwickau, near the Czech border, that she is believed to have torched on Nov. 4. That was the same day that the two other suspects Uwe B. and Uwe M. were found dead in a mobile home in the eastern German city of Eisenach, 110 miles (175 kilometers) west of Zwickau.

In the mobile home, investigators also found the service weapons of the two police officers attacked by the group in 2007, when a 22-year-old policewoman was fatally shot in the head and a fellow officer was seriously wounded.

A fourth suspect belonging to the group, identified as Holger G., 37, was brought before a judge Monday and ordered detained. He is believed to have supported the group, including helping to facilitate the 2007 attack in the western city of Heilbronn that killed a policewoman and seriously injured another.

Many Germans are asking themselves how the group, which allegedly included far-right extremists who were known to authorities, could have succeeded in carrying out crimes undetected for so many years.

Chancellor Angela Merkel called it "a shame for Germany" and vowed at a party conference in Leipzig to "do everything possible" to clarify the case, "to bring justice to the people."

The widening case has sparked a fierce debate over the government's ability to protect the millions of immigrants who call Germany home, even as it seeks to attract more skilled workers from abroad.

"I find it shocking that our country was not capable of protecting 10 innocent people from a band of far-right terrorists," said Thomas Oppermann, a senior lawmaker with the opposition Social Democrats. He noted that Merkel's government has slashed the budget to fight far-right extremism in recent years.

Authorities in the western state of North-Rhine-Westphalia also said they believed the group could be responsible for an attack on a 19-year-old Iranian-German in Cologne. The young woman survived with injuries and the case was never resolved, state authorities said.

Ralf Jaeger, interior minister for North-Rhine-Westphalia, said analysis of a DVD believed to have been complied by the group led authorities to link that January 2001 attack to the extremist.

"We are now going back over all unsolved crimes for which we previously had no motive, to determine whether they might have been caused by a far-right motive, based on tips from the DVD," Jaeger said, according to the news agency dapd.

Still shots of the video published in Der Spiegel on Monday showed a cartoon stoplight with the acronym "NSU" next to a faked advertisement reading "Today kebab action" – a possible reference to many of the victims' Turkish origins. Another still depicted an image of a proud Pink Panther next to a placard with "Germany Tour, 9th Turk Shot" blazed over a map of Germany and a photo of a dark-haired main. Yet another image showed a slain victim.