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Racism and fascism - in brief (5)

01 September 2005

Germany: NPD leader jailed for inciting hatred. On 25 August the regional court in Stralsund sentenced NPD leader Udo Voigt to a four months suspended sentence with two years probation. The sentence was given in an appeal procedure initiated by the public prosecutor, which had brought a case against Voigt for a speech he gave in August 1998. The case had been rejected in first instance by the administrative court in Greifswald for lack of evidence. In an election campaign speech in Greifswald to 50 youths, Voigt declared that he would have taken up arms during the Cold War if Germany had been under threat and told the audience that "we would expect that from you, too". The enemy, he said, was the thinking of established politicians. Film material gathered from a television crew at the public broadcasting channel ZDF started the proceedings, which, according to judge Frank Bechlin, showed that Voigt had "incited hatred against politicians". Voigt was a candidate in the national parliamentary elections this summer. Süddeutsche Zeitung 26.8.05. See http://lexikon.idgr.de/v/v_o/voigt-udo/voigt-udo.php for an outline of Voigt's history in the far-right movement in Germany.