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German Cabinet Initiates Move to Strip Rights of Neo-nazis

December 10, 1992
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In an unprecedented move, the German Cabinet decided Wednesday to seek to have two notorious neo-Nazi activists, Thomas Dienel and Heinz Reisz, stripped of their basic civil rights. Both have recently shocked the public by making extremely aggressive anti-Semitic remarks at open meetings and even in court.

The initiative is pending the confirmation of the Karlsruhe-based constitutional court, which could stop the move. Legal exerts said Wednesday that the court may be reluctant to accept the application of the highly unusual measure.

Interior Minister Rudolf Seiters, who initiated the move, said Wednesday that both activists contributed to the current wave of neo-Nazi violence by inciting against foreigners and Jews.

The civil rights to be scrapped would include free speech, the right to demonstrate, the right to vote and the right to establish an association.

Meanwhile, 24 houses and apartments were searched Wednesday as part of a crackdown on a neo-Nazi group in the northwestern port city of Wilhelmshaven, on Jade Bay, and its environs. The group is called Deutsche Kammaradschaftsbund Wilhelmshaven.

The authorities in the state of Lower Saxony, who ordered the crackdown, said in Hanover that their eventual aim is to ban the group. They said that large quantities of light weapons and propaganda material had been confiscated.

In a debate at the state Parliament in Hanover, Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Gerhard Schroeder said that bridging the social and economic gap between eastern and western Germany would be an important step in fighting against the incitement by neo-Nazi organizations.

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