An Iraqi man was beaten by a suspected right-wing extremist in a former East German state, raising alarms about increasing violence among neo-Nazis in the area.
The attack in Saxony Anhalt was one of several recent violent incidents involving neo-Nazis and revived talk about banning the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany.
According to reports, the attacker verbally abused a 36-year-old Iraqi man who was waiting at a bus stop on Saturday night. After briefly leaving the scene, the perpetrator returned and beat the man with a baseball bat and sicked his dog on him. The victim suffered a head wound. A witness reported the attack to the police.
The incident took place one week after some 50 neo-Nazis rampaged during a summer festival in the town of Muegeln, in Saxony, seriously injuring several people of Indian background. In another case, police arrested a 29-year-old suspect in an attack last weekend on two Africans in the town of Gunterblum in the former West German state of Hessen.
A recent Emnid opinion poll showed that more German women than men – 14 percent to 9 percent – could see voting for a right-wing political party in the next state elections.
