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NAZI

Nazi gathering planned for Sunday

An annual Nazi march scheduled to take place on Sunday is expected to attract double the numbers that attended last year.

Published: 2 August 2012 10:22 CEST

The police are on high alert following rumours that some 300 right-wing extremists plan to gather on Sunday on the Rütli, the mountain meadow in canton Uri where the first oath of the independent Swiss Federation was thought to have been sworn.

Similar gatherings of sympathizers and members of the Nationally Oriented Swiss Party have occurred in the past few years, online news site 20 Minuten reported.

According to Bernese anti-fascists, the party is supported by the Hammerskins and the Neo-Nazi Blood and Honour groups, some of the country's most violent right-wing extremists.

The Federal Intelligence Service will be assisting the police on the day, who are ready to intervene should any trouble break out, including in the event of a breach of the anti-racism laws.

Police are expected to take a tough line against the marchers; 64-year-old man was recently sentenced under the anti-racism legislation for raising his right flattened hand at the party’s march in 2010.

The Young Socialist Party says it is furious that the demonstration is being allowed to proceed. They are frustrated that the police can only intervene in the event of a breach of the law, and have requested the Swiss Public Welfare Society (SGG), the body responsible for the upkeep of the meadow, to stop the march from going ahead.

The Young Socialists are now considering calling their own counter-demonstration on Sunday. They have also requested that the SGG themselves demonstrate, but this has been refused by the society’s leaders.

The SGG is more an organ of the federation than its own political body, and a political demonstration against the right-wing extremists could therefore be interpreted as being by the government itself.

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NEO-NAZI

Spain probes anti-Semitic speech at ‘horrific’ neo-Nazi rally

Prosecutors in Madrid on Tuesday said they had opened an investigation into anti-Semitic comments made at a neo-Nazi rally held at the weekend which drew ire from Spain's Jewish community.

Published: 17 February 2021 10:33 CET
Spain probes anti-Semitic speech at 'horrific' neo-Nazi rally
File photo of a man making a fascist salute in Madrid. Photo: AFP

The incident took place Saturday when around 300 people gathered at La Almudena cemetery, with footage on social media showing several people in the crowd repeatedly giving the Nazi salute.

The rally, which was also attended by a Catholic priest, was a commemoration of the so-called “Blue Division”, a unit of Spanish military volunteers that fought for the Nazis during World War II.

At the cemetery, they laid flowers in front of the memorial to the fallen Blue Division soldiers.

During the rally, a young woman gave an inflammatory speech echoing rhetoric from the 1930s.   

The region's prosecutors confirmed they had opened “criminal investigation to gather information about the anti-Semitic statements” which could constitute an offence relating to the exercise of fundamental rights and public freedoms, according to a statement received by AFP.    

“It is unacceptable that such serious anti-Semitic manifestations go unpunished,” said Isaac Benzaquen, head of the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities, indicating that a complaint had been filed.

Israel's ambassador to Spain, Rodica Radian-Gordon, also tweeted her condemnation, saying the statements were “repugnant and have no place in a democratic society”.

And the American Jewish Committee (AJC) described the rally as “horrific”, calling on the Spanish government on Twitter “to censure these groups endangering democracy”.

At least 200,000 Spanish Jews were forced into exile by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492. Known as Sephardim — the Hebrew term for Jews of Spanish origin — many fled to the Ottoman Empire or North Africa and later to Latin America.   

Today the Jewish community in Spain numbers around 40,000 people, community sources say.

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