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| Ermias M. |
POTSDAM – German police have detained two men in connection with a suspected racist attack which left an Ethiopia-born man seriously injured.
The men, aged 29 and 30, are being held on suspicion of racially-motivated attempted murder.
The 37-year-old victim, named as Ermyas M, suffered extensive skull and rib injuries in the attack in Potsdam, eastern Germany, early on Sunday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s office said the attack was “brutal and inhuman”.
Condemnation
Prosecutors said there was “a great number of suspicious facts that suggest the perpetrators acted out of hatred of foreigners and on the basis of right-wing extremist attitudes”.
The attack has prompted concern about neo-Nazi violence in Germany – especially as the country is hosting the football World Cup in June.
Chancellor Merkel said quick action would “make very clear that we condemn absolutely hatred of foreigners, far-right violence as well as any other violence”.
Six foreigners – five of them Africans – have been killed in attacks by neo-Nazis in the formerly communist east since German reunification in 1990. Hostels for asylum seekers were targeted by neo-Nazis in 1991-92.
‘Racist’ assault alarms Germans
BERLIN – A German man of Ethiopian origin is fighting for his life after being badly beaten, in what police described as a racist attack.
The 37-year-old engineer suffered extensive skull and rib injuries in the attack by two men in Potsdam, eastern Germany, early on Sunday.
About 100 foreigners have been killed in attacks by neo-Nazis since German reunification in 1990.
The racist attacks have been most common in the formerly communist east.
Prosecutors in Potsdam have offered a 5,000-euro (£3,460; $6,052) reward for information leading to the arrest of the attackers.
The man is reported to have phoned his wife on his mobile during the confrontation and a racist insult could be heard on her voicemail.
“We will not tolerate anyone in our state being persecuted, beaten or even killed in our state because of their skin colour or religion,” Brandenburg Interior Minister Joerg Schoenbohm said.
More attackers (From Reuters File)
More than 100 people have been killed in racist violence in Germany since unification in 1990. Most of the attacks are opportunistic – skinheads picking on foreigners in the street.
Attacks on property also occur – swastikas daubed on Jewish gravestones, bricks thrown at Turkish kebab shops and firebombs at asylum hostels. Most synagogues have 24-hour police guards.
In 2002 alone, the Bundesverfassungsschutz domestic intelligence service recorded 772 cases of violent crime “with right-wing political motivation”, up from 709 in 2001.
Among them were 646 cases of physical assault resulting in injury, and eight attempted murders but no actual murders.
The agency estimates Germany had 10,700 far right extremists in 2002 willing to use violence, up 30 per cent from 1998.
Most of them are right-wing skinheads attracted by Nazi ideology, who listen to music with lyrics such as these from group “Tonstoerung” (“Sound Interruption”): “Sharpen your long knifes on the pavements; delve them into Jewish bodies.”
Some of them belong to neo-Nazi organizations but authorities say there is no central force steering them.
Despite the Munich arrests, officials say the right-wing lacks the level of organization to make it as deadly as the far-left “Red Army Faction” that terrorized Germany with assassinations, kidnappings and hostage takings in the 1970s.
The worst incidents of racist violence, including the 1992 firebombing of an asylum-seekers’ hostel in the eastern port of Rostock where onlookers clapped in delight as the inhabitants struggled to flee, or the 1993 arson attack on the home of a Turkish family which killed five in the western town of Solingen, were followed by public outrage.
Police clampdowns on far right groups and publicity campaigns promoting tolerance ensued, and the pogrom-style attacks on foreigners have abated since the early 1990s.
The everyday violence has never stopped. “This is a battleground,” said Robert from Potsdam.
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