Word: far
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...average, two to three far-right-motivated violent crimes are committed in Germany each day. And there are around three to four anti-Semitic violent crimes each month," says Jörg Ziercke, president of the BKA. "There's a real danger to people's lives because far-right attacks tend to be very spontaneous, brutal and violent." Right-wing radicals have become increasingly brazen too, carrying out attacks in public places such as train stations, bus stops and outside bars and restaurants. In addition to el-Sherbini's murder, Ziercke says, there were five politically or racially motivated attempted...
...According to the BKA report, formerly communist eastern Germany has become a fertile breeding ground for far-right extremism. Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, many eastern regions are still struggling with high unemployment and deep-rooted social problems, and residents have increasingly turned to far-right political parties like the National Democratic Party (NPD). Attacks are common there too. Two years ago, a 50-person mob yelling, "Foreigners out!" chased eight Indians through the streets of the eastern town of Mügeln before brutally attacking them in a pizzeria while townspeople looked on. Fourteen people...
...Some experts believe that organizations like the NPD may be a driving force behind the rise in violence. A study published recently by the Hannah Arendt Institute for Research on Totalitarianism, in Dresden, found close links between the NPD and far-right radicals in the eastern state of Saxony, where the NPD entered the regional parliament after winning 9.2% of the vote in a 2004 election. Researchers said there was a steep rise in the number of clashes between far-right groups and left-wing activists after the vote. "The NPD has successfully recruited young people from the violent far...
...According to the German intelligence services, up to 30,000 Germans are believed to hold far-right beliefs - and among those, one-third are bent on violence. "It's a shocking situation," Ziercke says. He urged law-enforcement agencies to take stronger actions to prevent right-wing crimes and said courts must start handing down tougher sentences to offenders. The police chief also warned the government against scaling back funding for so-called exit programs, which are designed to help people leave extremist groups. "These people are mostly young, around 24 years old, and they come from difficult family backgrounds...
...Experts say authorities need to increase monitoring of the Internet as well, as right-wing groups are increasingly turning to the Web to spread their propaganda and messages of hate, often using foreign servers to try to avoid detection. "The problem is that Germany has a stable far-right scene, made up of autonomous nationalists, former skinheads and the NPD - and they're all growing in confidence," Hajo Funke, a professor of politics at Berlin's Free University, tells TIME. "These different neo-Nazi groups interact with one another using the Internet." (See Kristallnacht in words and pictures...