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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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The post Germany bans neo-Nazi group to send ‘signal against racism and antisemitism’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations
Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) was a Polish-Jewish artist whose work reflected the historic times he lived: the two world wars, the rise of totalitarianism in Europe and the birth of the State of Israel. In 1940, with the support of the British government and the Polish government-in-exile, he visited Canada to popularize the struggle against Nazism. […]
The post Treasure Trove: How a Polish-Jewish artist told Canadians about the horrors of Nazi Germany and produced beautiful illustrations appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.
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Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance
FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S., June 28, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File Photo
President Joe Biden embarks on a series of fundraising events across two states on Saturday as he works to stamp out a crisis of confidence in his re-election campaign following a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.
Biden and First Lady Jill Biden will visit the upscale New York beach enclave known as the Hamptons for a campaign fundraiser hosted by hedge-fund billionaire Barry Rosentein. Later in the day, he will travel to New Jersey for a fundraiser hosted by wealthy New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, a Democrat.
Fellow hedge-fund founder Eric Mindich and his Tony Award-winning producer wife Stacey, celebrity couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, and actor Michael J. Fox are all listed as members of the host committee at the New York event, according to an invitation seen by Reuters.
Biden told a rally in North Carolina on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign he would heed calls from Democrats who want him to drop out of the race.
Biden‘s verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses during Thursday night’s debate heightened voter concerns that the 81-year-old might not be fit to serve another four-year term.
The Biden campaign on Saturday boasted it had raised more than $27 million between debate day through Friday evening, but questions remain about whether the debate performance will hurt fundraising, at least in the short term.
The post Biden hits Fundraising Trail in Show of Strength after Dismal Debate Performance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group
Mourners carry a coffin during the funeral of Wissam Tawil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan forces who according to Lebanese security sources was killed during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon, in Khirbet Selm, Lebanon, Jan. 9, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Aziz Taher
i24 News – The Arab League no longer defines Hezbollah as a proscribed terrorist group, an official said on Saturday.
Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based Shiite militia and a proxy of the Islamic regime in Iran, boasts the world’s largest rocket arsenal of any non-state actor. It is animated by the antisemitic ideology of jihad and is committed to the destruction of Israel.
“In earlier Arab League decisions, Hezbollah was designated as a terrorist organization, and this designation was reflected in the resolutions,” Hossam Zaki, the assistant secretary-general of the Arab League, was quoted in Arab media as saying.
“The League’s member states concurred that the labeling of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization should no longer be employed,” Zaki said, adding that the regional body “does not maintain terrorist lists and does not actively seek to designate entities in such a manner.”
Hezbollah has unleashed numerous rockets, mortars and drones on northern Israel in the past eight months starting on October 8, a day after the Jewish state suffered the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust at the hands of the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas.
The post Arab League Rescinds the Classification of Hezbollah as a Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.