Germany honours racism victim
The eastern German city of Dresden will name a square after Jorge Gomondai, a man from Mozambique who was killed by a right-wing gang in 1991.
Marita Schieferdecker-Adolph, a city official who deals with foreigners residing in Dresden, said that a section of Haupstrasse (Main Street) will be renamed Jorge Gomondai Platz, the first time that a German square or street has been named after the victim of an attack by a right-wing gang.
The 28-year-old Gomondai died over 15 years ago of serious injuries he suffered after right-wing skinheads pushed him off a moving streetcar onto Hauptstrasse. He was the first fatal victim of a wave of neo-Nazi violence in former communist east Germany that followed unification in 1990.
In 1995, vandals painted Nazi swastikas on a plaque on Hauptstrasse commemorating Gomondai’s death.
The Central Council of Jews in Germany said the number of neo-Nazi attacks in Germany rose to 959 in 2005 from 776 the previous year, and would likely rise again this year.
Germany’s eastern states, which are plagued with high unemployment, remain the stronghold of Germany’s far right movement.