Neo-Nazi group get red card
German state Brandenburg has banned a neo-Nazi group after they made a flyer which targeted Germany’s Ghanaian born striker Gerald Asamoah.
Joerg Schoenbohm, the interior minister in Brandenburg state, announced the ban on the far-right organization “Schutzbund Deutschland” (Protection Alliance Germany) for inciting racial hatred and pulled its website from the Internet.
The ban came after police raided 14 sites around the region and seized tens of thousands of brochures, posters, stickers and other neo-Nazi paraphernalia.
“With the ban, we are sending a clear message in the fight against organized right-wing extremism and showing that we are an open, welcoming country,” Schoenbohm said.
“There is no place in our country for neo-Nazi propaganda and racial hatred.”
In May, the German Football Association requested the banning of a flyer attacking Asamoah.
At the same time, the group was attempting to have signs hung in the region reading “Stop! No Go Area” and “Warning to Foreign Guests” amid a spate of attacks against immigrants.
The group, which borrows many of its philosophiesfrom the Nazis, is said to only have 13 members, but a larger group of sympathisers.
Brandenburg has banned five far-right groups in the last decade.