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Germany bans neo-Nazi group to send ‘signal against racism and antisemitism’
(JTA) — Germany has banned a neo-Nazi group after raiding the homes of its leaders across the country, in a move the government said “sends a clear signal against racism and antisemitism.”
The Hammerskins, a local spinoff of a group founded in the United States in the late 1980s, are accused of promoting criminal activities and of opposing the German constitution. According to a recent report from Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the group was the only the only remaining neo-Nazi organization active nationwide.
“The ban of the Hammerskins Germany is a hard blow against organized right-wing extremism,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Tuesday. “With this ban, we are putting an end to the inhumane activities of an internationally active neo-Nazi association in Germany… This sends a clear signal against racism and antisemitism.”
The German group, founded in the 1990s, reportedly has only 130 known members but is considered influential in the neo-Nazi scene. German police raided the homes of 28 suspected leading Hammerskins members in 10 states across Germany on Tuesday.
It is rare for Germany to ban a political organization, thanks to postwar guarantees of free speech and assembly. Exceptions occur when an organization threatens the democratic state, or if it denies or glorifies the country’s Nazi past.
The Hammerskins are reportedly the 20th right-wing extremist organization that Germany has banned. For example, in 2007, Germany banned Collegium Humanum, its member organization Bauernhilfe and the Association for the Rehabilitation of Those Persecuted for Denying the Holocaust” as “reservoirs of organized Holocaust denial.” In 2020, the government banned the groups Combat 18, Nordadler, and Sturmbrigade 44/Wolfsbrigade 44; and in 2021, they banned Nationale Sozialisten Rostock and its spinoff, the Baltik Korps.
But in 2017, to the disappointment of Jewish groups in Germany, the supreme court rejected a ban on the far-right party NPD — the National Democratic Party of Germany, which changed its name this year to “The Homeland” — saying they were not dangerous enough to warrant such an extreme response. The NPD never succeeded in gaining parliamentary seats on the national level.
Meanwhile, the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, founded in 2013, has made continual political headway, reaching the national parliament, the Bundestag, and thus receiving taxpayer funding for their activities and infrastructure. There have been calls for it to be banned from politics over its anti-immigrant platform and the Holocaust relativization of some leading members.
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Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions
ILLUSTRATIVE: The Iranian flag waves in front of the IAEA headquarters before the beginning of a board of governors meeting, in Vienna, Austria, March 1, 2021. Photo: Reuters/Lisi Niesner
Iran’s currency fell on Saturday to a new all-time low against the US dollar after the country’s supreme leader rejected talks with the United States and President Donald Trump moved to restore his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran.
The rial plunged to 892,500 to the dollar on the unofficial market on Saturday, compared with 869,500 rials on Friday, according to the foreign exchange website alanchand.com. The bazar360.com website said the dollar was sold for 883,100 rials. Asr-e-no website reported the dollar trading at 891,000 rials.
Facing an official inflation rate of about 35%, Iranians seeking safe havens for their savings have been buying dollars, other hard currencies, gold or cryptocurrencies, suggesting further headwinds for the rial.
The dollar has been gaining against the rial since trading around 690,000 rials at the time of Trump’s re-election in November amid concerns that Trump would re-impose his “maximum pressure” policy against Iran with tougher sanctions and empower Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites.
Trump in 2018 withdrew from a nuclear deal struck by his predecessor Barack Obama in 2015 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran that had been relaxed. The deal had limited Iran’s ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons.
Iran’s rial has lost more than 90% of its value since the sanctions were reimposed in 2018.
The post Iran Currency Plunges to Record Lows Amid Escalating US Tensions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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US Envoy’s ‘Zionist’ Ring Sends Shockwaves on Social Media
Lebanon’s army chief Joseph Aoun walks after being elected as the country’s president at the parliament building in Beirut, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
i24 News – A photo showing US President Donald Trump’s deputy Middle East envoy donning a ring embellished with the Star of David to a meeting with Lebanon’s leader triggered outrage in Arabic social and broadcast media.
As Morgan Ortagus, who is Jewish, shook hands with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, her Star of David ring was visible in the frame, sparking accusations such as her being “more Zionist than her predecessors.”
Her direct superior, Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, is likewise Jewish-American, as is his predecessor Amos Hochstein, who was born in Jerusalem and served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Ortagus is the first senior Trump admin official to visit Lebanon amid the fragile ceasefire agreed by Israel and the Lebanon-based Shiite jihadists of Hezbollah.
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UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing
Supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir at a pro-Hamas rally in London. Photo: Reuters/Martin Pope
i24 News – Anti-Israeli activists in Britain applied for a permit to stage a demonstration through London on the morning of October 7, 2023, as Gazan jihadists were rampaging through southern Israel and slaughtering civilians, the Daily Telegraph reported.
At 12:50 PM, as the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust was still ongoing, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) notified the Metropolitan Police that they intended to hold a rally the following week.
Reports and videos of the Hamas-led onslaught began appearing on social media, and Israeli and then international broadcast media, several hours earlier.
“The Met was contacted on Saturday Oct 7 at approximately 12.50pm via telephone call and informed of the intention to protest,” a police spokesman was quoted by the Telegraph as saying. “The Met committed this to our systems on the same day and are satisfied being contacted by telephone was a sufficient means in which to notify the MPS as the event was taking place seven days after notification.”
The group’s spokesperson defended the move, telling the Telegraph it was “clear” as early as Saturday noon that “the Israeli attacks on Gaza would be of an indiscriminate violence we had not witnessed before, and that 2.3 million people in Gaza – more than 50 percent of them children – were at severe risk.”
The post UK: Pro-Palestinian Activists Applied for a March Permit on Oct 7 as Massacre Was Ongoing first appeared on Algemeiner.com.