Racism concerns WC hosts
2006-06-02 14:36
Berlin - In the course of one day last week in eastern Germany, five men singing the national anthem and shouting fascist slogans beat up an Indian, eight thugs attacked three men from Cuba and Mozambique, and a Turk was hurt in a fight with four white men.
As Germany prepares to welcome more than a million foreign fans for the soccer World Cup, a spate of racist attacks is raising fears that the world's most popular sporting event - and Germany's image - will be tarnished by an explosion of right-wing violence.
The issue flared into a hot national debate after a former government spokesman floated the idea of "no-go zones" in the most notorious epicentres of racist attacks.
In a radio interview last month, Uwe-Karsten Heye warned anyone with dark skin against setting foot in small and middle-sized towns in Brandenburg, the region around Berlin that has been a hotbed of hate crimes. "He might not leave alive," Heye said.
"We have seen on radical right and neo-Nazi websites they plan to target black people," said Eritrean-born Jonas Endrias, vice president of the International League of Human Rights. "All of east Germany is unsafe."
Government figures released last weeks show acts of violence connected to the far-right rose nearly 25% in 2005 from 776 to 958. Since German unification in 1990, 99 people have been killed in hate crimes, with racial motivation also suspected in another 34 deaths.
Despite the recent high-profile attacks, officials say hate crimes have long been a problem in Germany and there are no signs of an upswing ahead of the World Cup.
"Our numbers don't show any increase leading up to the World Cup," said Interior Ministry spokesman Christian Sachs. "We have this problem independent of the World Cup, but the World Cup is certainly the reason for the huge interest now."
Indeed many minorities in Germany say politicians and the media are simply being jolted awake to the reality of life for dark-skinned people in eastern Germany.
Despite the concerns, the Interior Ministry, responsible for World Cup security, doesn't plan warnings about danger zones for visitors.
Hate crimes have alarmed the country before. In 1999, 15 neo-Nazis hunted two Algerian refugees through a Brandenburg town. One jumped through a glass door to escape, then bled to death from a leg wound.
Celal Altun, secretary general of the Turkish Council, which represents Germany's three million Turks, says the problem is real but exaggerated.
"I would not write off Germany as a racist country, and I would stop short of saying there is any place you absolutely can't go to," Altun said.
- AP