Germany...not doing the right thing AGAIN!!! and AGAIN!

[MRT144]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=574&e=7&u=/nm/20050129/wl_nm/germany_farright_dc

World - Reuters
Reuters
Top German Judge Says Far-Right Party Ban Possible

Sat Jan 29, 1:05 PM ET

By Dave Graham

BERLIN (Reuters) - A controversial far-right party in Germany could be banned despite the failure of an earlier attempt to outlaw it, the head of Germany's highest court was quoted as saying by a newspaper on Saturday.

The remarks of Hans-Juergen Papier, president of the constitutional court, coincided with violent clashes between police and demonstrators protesting at a rally by the National Democratic Party (NPD) in the northern city of Kiel.

Papier said that although the court threw out a government bid to ban the NPD in 2003, future attempts could still succeed.

"The suspension of proceedings to ban (the party) then, does not represent a pre-ordained decision on future efforts to ban (it)," Papier wrote in a guest contribution for Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper, due to appear on Sunday.

"These facts need to be remembered," he added.

In Kiel, demonstrators threw bottles and stones at police protecting some 450 supporters of the NPD as they attended a public address by the party. Discontent over the NPD event drew around 7,000 protesters, according to police estimates.

"There (were) massive and hard clashes," a police spokesman said, adding that tires and rubbish containers had been set on fire and that police had sprayed protesters with a water cannon.

Police said over 40 largely left-wing demonstrators were detained. Many street signs and shop windows were vandalized.

The center-left government has likened the NPD to the embryonic Nazi party and tried to have it outlawed on the grounds that it stirred racial hatred.

Despite Papier's comments, Bavaria's Interior Minister Guenther Beckstein, who in 2000 kickstarted the push for the NPD ban, advised against a fresh initiative for the moment.

"I want to remind people that the NPD ban proceedings failed due to a minority (vote) among the judges -- the majority wanted to continue proceedings," he told Reuters by telephone.

The opposition conservative lawmaker said a ban would require a three-quarters majority in the constitutional court.

Prior to its ruling, the court had suspended proceedings after it emerged the government's case against the NPD included testimony and speeches from paid informants.

The NPD, which seeks to promote policies that favor ethnic Germans and is strongly anti-Jewish, produced the far-right's best showing in six years in September when it won nearly 10 percent of the vote in state elections in Saxony.

It provoked outrage last week by walking out of a minute's silence for Nazi victims and referring to Allied strikes on the German city of Dresden in 1945 as a "bombing holocaust."

when has banning political parties ever been a good thing?

[Dinner]

I'm not sure I like this party's politics but it seems to me that having left leaning political parties seeking to ban right leaning parties is little better then vis versa.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I'm not sure I like this party's politics but it seems to me that having left leaning political parties seeking to ban right leaning parties is little better then vis versa.

"Right leaning" may not be the correct expression for the NPD. Partial playing down or actively denying holocaust, "vicitmization" of WWII-Germany, aggressive anti-semitism are among the positions of the party. As in the article stated, conservative party was also pushing to outlaw the party as unconstitutional. They only think now that such a move is not productive at the moment, but generally they don't have a problem with such a ban. So you can't subsum this as "left leaning" parties censoring/banning "right leaning" parties.
Spreading of Nazi propaganda is unconstitutional in Germany with a reason. OK, if a fascist ideology becomes so strong that the system isn't able to cope with them, the state will go down. But unless such a situation comes, democracy has a right to protect itself against hostile movements that actively undermine it and don't accept the core of democracy itself. So banning a party may have a positive effect because you deny them a more public stage and the fig leave of social normality.

[MRT144]

or it could be used as cause to just alienate bunch of people into supporting them.

[BeBMan]

Lol NPD "right leaning" - they are neonazis.

[Pekka]

Wernazuma, right, I think with NPD, I don't know too much about it but I tihnk it's closer to neo-nazis than a real party. So, democratically thinking they should have the right to .. try to get in there, but then again if they would gain power, they would halt democratic processes and not respect the democratic ideals. So maybe those attempts can be seen as enemy of democracy. It's kind of double edged sword though.. I don't know what the solution to this would be, I mean banning it is also kind of .. undemocratic. Difficult question.

But yes, they are not 'conservatives' or regular right wing.

[Proteus_MST]

There is a reason why there are now again attempts to ban the NPD:

It is usual at the anniversary of the Bombings of Dresden for the State Parliament of Saxonia, to hold a silence minute for all the victims of the Nazi Regime.
All the members of the parliament took part in this, with one exception. All of the members of the NPD (who since the last elections have a small number of delegates in the parliament) left the conference hall.
Even before this, they had petitioned, to only mourn the german victims at the anniversary and to held a discussion about the *quote*Terrorattack on Dresden 60 years ago*/quote*

In a discussion within the parliament afterwards the leaders of the NPD-Fraction within the parliament again called, partially shouting, the allied forces mass murderers and spoke of an anglo-american gangster policy.

Here in germany this could count as demagogy and leaves strong remembrances on a certain party which was in power in Germany 60 years ago,
so it is justified, that again it is checked wether ist is a reason to ban the NPD.

As BeBro already mentioned, the NPD isn´t just right leaning, but a party which has close ties to Neonazis, is supported by them and very certainly supports them and their propaganda (although very rarely openly, but most of the times hidden)

[Dinner]

In any event even if the party is full of scum bags you need to arrest them if they break the law but not ban the entire party simply because you don't like their politics. In the US it is legal to be part of extremist parties like the American Nazi Party or the American Communist Party but those members are watch closely and if they break the law then rhe authorities go after the individuaal based upon the law s/he broke.

Banning whole parties who have not broken the law smells of facism and should be avoided even if the other guys are dumb asses. It is much better to simply keep them legal and then ridicule them so that everyone sees how stupid they really are. Then they can't complain that they're being repressed since they had their chance but were launghed off the stage.

[Dinner]

The NPD sounds a lot like the British National Party which is anti-immigrant and believes in the racial superiority of Anglo-Saxon people. It is a legal party in the UK though the media exposes them for the frauds they are and everyone gets to have a good laugh at their expense.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The NPD sounds a lot like the British National Party which is anti-immigrant and believes in the racial superiority of Anglo-Saxon people. It is a legal party in the UK though the media exposes them for the frauds they are and everyone gets to have a good laugh at their expense.

Yes and no. They are very similar, and most of the time they are just stupid. However, the first attempt to ban them was made not because the majority doesn't like their POVs - there are similar parties here which haven't been threatened with a ban. In the case of the NPD the ban was planned because party members (up to the leading ranks in the NPD) were linked to violence, including some very disturbing cases. Some spent already their time in jail for that.

[Dinner]

Then it seems the German government took the correct path. If people are advocating violence then they should be arrested and charged and if a party is advicating violence then it too should be held accountable.

[Proteus_MST]

Originally posted by Oerdin
In any event even if the party is full of scum bags you need to arrest them if they break the law but not ban the entire party simply because you don't like their politics. In the US it is legal to be part of extremist parties like the American Nazi Party or the American Communist Party but those members are watch closely and if they break the law then rhe authorities go after the individuaal based upon the law s/he broke.

Banning whole parties who have not broken the law smells of facism and should be avoided even if the other guys are dumb asses. It is much better to simply keep them legal and then ridicule them so that everyone sees how stupid they really are. Then they can't complain that they're being repressed since they had their chance but were launghed off the stage.

But, as I said, they probably have broken the law.
Exactly this is it what is checked.

We have laws against damagogism, i.e. for example publicly stating that Holocaust is a lie invented by the allies, Jews are subhumans that should be exterminated and many other things.

In America you would probably allowed to say such things, by Free speech, but in Germany stating such things could get you a fine or even imprisonment.

So now it is checked, if, by the actions I stated above, the NPD has broken the § 130 StGB, which covers just this.
Especially this passsage from § 130:

(3) with imprisonment up to five years or with fine one is punished, who publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or plays down. an action committed under the rule of the national socialism in kind of way, which is suitable, of disturbing the public peace

http://lawww.de/Library/stgb/130.htm

As the NPD is a politic party, the punishment could also result in a ban for the whole party, if it is made clear, that those acts aren´t sole acts from a few members, but that the party has supported these acts.

[BeBMan]

That is in fact the major problem - determining when it is only about single members, or when it is the party in general that is advocating or using violence. Insofar I can understand the concerns regarding such a ban (and it is a controversial topic here too). But I sometimes get the impression people outside Germany think parties are banned easily here all the time, which is not the case. The gouvernment cannot ban a party alone, it must prove in the constitutional court that the ban it seeks is justified (and the party in question can defend itself then).

[RGBVideo]

Boo.

East Germans trying to kick out ineffective socialist rule
Corrupt ruling party elites in the west banning every serious opposition movement they'll face

[Patroklos]

But unless such a situation comes, democracy has a right to protect itself against hostile movements that actively undermine it and don't accept the core of democracy itself.

And thus democracy is already lost. That is a slippery slope. And btw it is totally within the tenets of democracy to have it voluntarily disolved.

And not that I have any problem mourning Holocaust victims, but why would you do that at a Dresden bombing memorial? We do the same thing with black civil war soldiers, every sight has to celebrate them whether there were any there or not.