########################################################## BLOOD AND HONOUR BANNED IN GERMANY Interior Ministry Bans Two Skinhead Groups By Albert Sch�ffer BERLIN. Interior Minister Otto Schily, hoping to stamp out right-wing extremist violence plaguing the country, banned the skinhead organization Blood & Honour and its youth organization, White Youth, on Thursday. As part of the government's efforts to eliminate the group, police conducted house searches in a number of states, seizing savings accounts with deposits containing thousands of marks, computers and far-right propaganda material. The government also asked Internet companies not to allow Web sites put together by the banned organizations. The ban is proof that the government is taking all conceivable measures to combat right-wing extremist activities, Mr. Schily said. Germany is the first country to ban the international group. Blood & Honour also has "divisions" in Great Britain, the United States, Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The German branch was founded in Berlin in 1994. It had an estimated 200 members, a further 100 belonged to its youth group. According to the Ministry of the Interior, the organization rejects Germany's constitutional order and the idea of international understanding. Germany Bans Two Skinhead GroupsAn information sheet distributed to applicants said the association's aim was to "spread the nationalist world view in the music sector." A brochure published by the organization also protested the "flood of colored immigrants" and spoke of an imminent "white counterattack in the form of a final solution," according to the Interior Ministry. Germany's national and state interior ministers are allowed to ban organizations under an Association Law. Authorities also may ban political parties. But the legal requirements are much stricter, requiring a ruling by the country's top constitutional court. The court has banned two parties before, both times in the 1950s. Officials said Blood & Honour had had numerous contacts with the German National Party (NPD) in recent years. This party is the focus of a study aimed at determining whether officials should seek a ban. Sources in Berlin said on Thursday that they expected the working group examining the legal requirements for the ban would make a recommendation next month. If the working group finds a firm legal basis for banning the NPD that could be upheld at the Constitutional Court, a political decision is expected to follow quickly, sources said. It now appears as if the three constitutional bodies: the federal government; the Bundestag; and the Bundesrat, the chamber that represents the states at a national level, want to file a joint application to the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe. Mr. Schily pointed out on Thursday that Blood & Honour had wanted to reach young people using music. "In the struggle against right-wing extremism, it is vitally important to counteract this poisoning of the hearts and minds of young people," he said. The skinhead movement was politicized in the 1970s, especially by the far-right National Front. Neo-Nazis such as Ian Stuart, the founder of Blood & Honour who died in 1993, used music to spread a form of pan-European racism strongly reminiscent of National Socialism under the slogan White Power. On Wednesday, two German newspapers reported that the number of deaths blamed on right-wing violence since reunification on Oct. 3, 1990, was higher than officials have said. The Frankfurter Rundschau and Berliner Tagesspiegel said they had counted 93 victims, compared with 26 listed by federal officials. September 14 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 2000 ############################################################
