The Mayor of Frankfurt has cancelled an agreement with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) for use of a city-owned public hall for a party congress scheduled to be held March 27-28. The Mayor acted in response to angry protests from the local Jewish community, the local representatives of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the local branch of the DGB central trade union, among others.
The cancellation order was issued on grounds that publicly owned facilities should not be rented to extreme rightwing or extreme leftwing organizations. The NPD is expected to challenge the order in court, as it did successfully last year in a case involving another municipally-owned hall in Frankfurt.
The Jewish community warned that the NPD congress was a dangerous and provocative event, aimed at the city’s Jews. The organization of persecutees of the Nazi regime has called for a demonstration outside the hall. The SPD said it was scandalous that the city authorities rented the hall for a Nazi rally and showed a lack of sensitivity. The trade unionists declared that they would not tolerate the event and called on their members to demonstrate against the Nazi rally.
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