German government opts against bid to ban far-right party

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Reuters

(Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet decided on Wednesday not to try to outlaw the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) due to splits within the ruling coalition, leaving Germany's states to pursue their own ban.

Germany's domestic intelligence service has branded the NPD "racist, anti-Semitic and revisionist" but banning a political party is especially sensitive in Germany, still haunted by memories of Nazi and communist regimes which silenced dissent.

The cabinet decided at its weekly meeting not to lodge its own request for a ban with the Constitutional Court but instead to support a bid to be filed by the states, who make up the Bundesrat upper chamber of parliament, a government source said.

Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/03/20/uk-germany-neonazis-idUKBRE92J0CG20130320

[Kelvin Mace]

1. Am I reading this correctly?

The German Right does not want to ban the Extreme Right (i.e. Nazis by any other name)?

Seems that would indicate members of the Extreme Right already in Merkel's party.

[dipsydoodle]

3. I posted repy #2 in the wrong place.

Was meant for you.

[Celefin]

4. Not really

The debate around banning the National Democratic Party (NPD) has been going on for years. There are always voices in the conservative party, the liberal democrats and the social democrats calling for a ban. Then there are others who prefer the NPD out in the open as this makes it much easier to monitor the ultra right's actions and support in the general populace. There are fairly hard right politicians in Merkel's party (CDU) but there is no room whatsoever for these nutcases. In the last decade there have been one or two people in the CDU voicing support for some views that could be interpreted as close to the NPD. They were forced to resign almost immediately. So don't worry.

And as dipsydoodle stated, its very difficult and complicated to ban a political party in Germany, an applied lesson learned from history.

Cheers,
Cel

[Posteritatis]

8. Germany has a little more experience than the US re: caution in banning political groups. (nt)

[dipsydoodle]

2. Read 2nd para

That's the reason......banning a political party is especially sensitive in Germany, still haunted by memories of Nazi and communist regimes which silenced dissent.

[Kelvin Mace]

5. Ah, thanks!

[Generation_Why]

6. I'd like to see far right parties banned across the world. nt

[nomorenomore08]

7. I tend to think marginalizing and discrediting them by other means, is a better solution.

Driving them underground enables them to cry persecution, as well as making them more difficult to keep tabs on.

[David__77]

9. NPD is a holding pen for reactionaries.

I don't think banning it at this point would be a strike against fascism; rather, this party keeps them tamed so as to avoid banning.

Further, they tar the right of the CDU/CSU as fascist, because they spout the same message. Banning NPD could only help the "legitimate rightists."

[Nye Bevan]

10. Chilling and amazing that a modern democracy can even contemplate banning a political party. (nt)

[Celefin]

11. Depends on the context

If a party uses its tax-exempt structures and part-taxpayer funded refinancing for election year costs to help organizing extremist groups that have embarked on a sometimes frighteningly successful program of ethnic cleansing in some of the poorer regions of eastern Germany, I think a debate on banning them should not be suppressed.

If they were only using their right of free speech and political organization, nobody would be talking about a ban. Especially not in Germany. But this party has been instrumental in organizing groups that have succeeded in making life absolutely miserable for thousands of people 'not in line' in many east German rural areas, resulting in white-German-only towns and villages where nobody will speak up against these people anymore.

Sound familiar? That is the reason for the debate on a ban, in a country where beginnings like this led to worldwide disaster.