German citizens and political leaders alike are appalled: For ten years, a group of neo-Nazis has ben carrying out a series of murders targeting immigrants - apparently without the country's intelligence services recognizing that there was a network behind the murders.
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In response, German political leaders have made emphatic calls for the country's far-right National Democratic Party, the NPD, to be banned once and for all, after a first attempt failed in 2003. The Federal Constitutional Court, at the time, rejected the government's arguments for a ban, saying too many intelligence informers had infiltrated NPD ranks.
The leader of Germany's Social Democrats, Frank Walter Steinmeier, on Tuesday, called for a new attempt to be made. The head of Germany's police union also said the NPD should be banned. Even Merkel's conservative Christian Democrats, who were previously against such a move, now say they would back a ban.
But that may be difficult: according to German daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger quoting intelligence sources, there are up to 100 paid informants in the NPD today, significantly more than in 2003, when 15 percent of the party's members were informants.
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Eckhard Jesse, from Chemnitz, said he thought an NPD ban would be highly impractical. Extreme right-wing attitudes would not disappear if the party were made illegal, he said. Many members would form new organizations, and many hardliners would become even more radicalized, causing the complete opposite of the intended effect.
Jesse said that the authorities should watch the numbers. The NPD, right now, is a small and obscure party that attracts hardly more than one percent of German voters. In addition, informants embedded in the party made its observation easier.
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Danger of radicalization
Political scientist Butterwegge of Cologne University agreed that banning the NPD could create the danger of further radicalizing right-wing extremists. However, he said he supported a ban, as long as it's not the only political action taken.
Bans should not be the only weapon, says Funke
"I think a ban on the NPD could send a powerful message to German society that we are not going to tolerate right-wing extremism in any form," he said, adding that such an effect would only happen if the government handles the ban well.
A wide-ranging explanation for the ban would be necessary, Butterwegge said. Not just the NPD as an organization would have to be observed, but rather its ideology. The idea that Germans are superior and belong to a greater race is the driving force behind right-wing extremism, and going along with it is the social Darwinist argument that the strongest must rise to the top of society.
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Full article:
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15538323,00.html
Personally, I don't know if it would solve the problem and I tend to agree partly with article's specialists, that it might be more dangerous to forbid it, even though it's tempting to ban such awful party.
