Violence vs. non-violence

NOW

Girl ‘carved swastika into hip’
Reuters
September 17, 2008

A GERMAN teenager accused of engraving a swastika into her hip and blaming the injury on right-wing militants has gone on trial in eastern Germany. The 18-year-old, known only as Rebecca K., had last year been hailed as a local hero when she reported saving a five-year-old from being pushed and shoved by four neo-Nazi youths, risking her own safety and subsequently being attacked herself. Despite public outrage and a promised police reward of €5000 ($7096) for any witnesses or evidence, nobody was able to back up her statements. “We have often had cases where individuals fake a chargeable offence, but this one is extraordinary,” said Lutz Hasselmann, spokesman for the district court of Hainichen, near the eastern city of Chemnitz. The girl became a local celebrity and was awarded an honorary medal for exceptional courage after she told police about the attack, which she said included cutting a swastika into the skin of her hip with a scalpel-like object. Nazi symbols, including swastikas, are banned in Germany. The girl had accused members of ‘Sturm 34’, a right-wing organisation which was last year banned by the state of Saxony, where far-right groups are particularly strong. Hasselmann said the lack of evidence caused prosecutors to doubt the young woman’s account. She is charged with making false accusations and lying to the police and public authorities, in a trial expected to last until mid-October.

THEN

…

Last month [November, 2007] a 17-year-old girl had a swastika carved into her hip by a gang of neo-Nazis after she tried to stop them bullying a six-year-old foreign girl. A pregnant Iraqi woman needed hospital treatment last weekend after being punched on a bus in Magdeburg, the state capital of Saxony-Anhalt. In another incident, a group of German men attacked three men and a woman from Niger as a crowd of 30 people looked on.

In the meantime…

Extreme-Right Violence: Two Very Similar Murders Go Unnoticed
Sven Röbel
Spiegel Online
September 2, 2008

Two young men were killed in the space of only a few days in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The suspected killers are both neo-Nazis with previous convictions for similar attacks, and yet there has been no public outcry about the two cases.

When Rick L. died, in the bushes behind a bus stop in the eastern German city of Magdeburg, he had already suffered a martyrdom of countless blows and kicks. The 20-year-old art student was literally kicked and beaten to death by his tormentor. According to the autopsy report, Rick L., whose body showed substantial evidence of internal injuries, suffocated in his own blood.

A short time later Bastian O., 20, a right-wing extremist with previous convictions for similar attacks, was arrested and charged with the murder. Investigators believe that the deadly beating was triggered by the victim’s critical remarks about O.’s apparent far-right views.

The second murder occurred the next weekend, less than 50 kilometers (31 miles) away, on Aug. 24. Marcel W., who had just turned 18, was found lying in a pool of blood in the town of Bernburg, his body covered with knife wounds.

David B., another neo-Nazi with a criminal record for violent offences, was arrested and charged with the murder. The victim had been scheduled to testify last week against the 19-year-old right-wing extremist in an assault case…

The question as to whether the killings in Bernburg and Magdeburg will enter the crime statistics as being directly politically motivated is, in fact, irrelevant. The fact is that the two suspects were part of a radical right-wing environment that places little value on human lives, particularly those of the “weak ones,” and where an astonishing level of brutality can claim its victims at any time. Acquaintances describe both Bastian O. and David B. as “ticking time bombs” and say that it was “only a matter of time before something happened.” But no one attempted to defuse those time bombs.

According to a former classmate at the Sophie Scholl Secondary School in the nearby town of Baalberge, David B.’s right-wing sympathies began by as early as the fifth grade. That was when he first met his later victim, Marcel W., a slight boy from a troubled family who had been “nice to everyone” but was already the victim of bullying attacks in school…

Neo-Nazi Claims ‘Self-Defense’

David B. once again came to the attention of local police while still on probation. According to prosecutors, he brutally attacked his later victim, Marcel W., for the first time on Nov. 20, 2007. But prosecutors were unable to charge B. with assault because Marcel W. failed to appear on two court dates.

According to a close friend, Marcel was “terrified” of the neo-Nazi. She says that the boy, who was only 1.65 meters (5’5″) tall and had last worked in a bicycle repair shop, had hidden from the violent David B. in her apartment on several occasions. The court had scheduled a third hearing for last Tuesday, at 2:30 p.m., and had ordered W. to appear as a witness.

But Marcel W. was dead by then…

September 20, 2003: Ravenous, Blood Red Eagle, Bail Up!, Deaths Head and Fortress play the ISD memorial gig. A visiting member of the German NPD party donates a party flag, which Blood & Honour declares will be displayed at future events in order to ‘show our respect/support for our brothers in Deutschland’. Above: Professional Holocaust denialist Frederick Toben (left) and New Right/national anarchist Fuehrer Welf Herfurth (right) hold an NPD flag before the Sydney Opera House, 2005.