BERLIN, May 23 (UPI) -- Germany's top security chief has pledged to fight extremism in the wake of a report released by the country's constitution protection agency that politically motivated crimes have surged in 2005.
"We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia or anti-Semitism," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Monday in Berlin, at the release of a report by Germany's Office for the Protection of the Constitution, an agency designed to monitor all forms of extremism.
Schaeuble's remarks come amid increased extremist violence against dark-skinned people in Germany. Recent attacks -- one on a black German of Ethiopian descent, and another last week on a local Berlin politician of Kurdish origin -- have caused anti-racism activists to call on foreigners to shun certain areas of eastern Germany, where belligerent skinheads may beat them to death.
A former government spokesman, Uwe Karsten Heye, now working for an anti-racism organization, last week said "no-go areas" existed in eastern Germany where dark-skinned foreigners "might not make it out alive."
Heye's comments have been widely criticized in the named regions, but the numbers in the newly released report prove that crimes executed by neo-Nazis are indeed on the rise.
Some 26,401 politically motivated crimes (including left-wing and right-wing extremism) took place in 2005, a rise of 5,223 cases or 24.7 percent over 2004. Right-wing extremist crimes rose by 37.5 percent, to 15,361 cases. And there exists is a regionalization of neo-Nazi movements: When it comes to right-wing extremist crimes per capita, four states in eastern Germany (Saxony-Anhalt, Brandenburg, Thuringia, Saxony) head the dubious top 5 ranking. The violent right-wing extremist scene grew by 400 people to an estimated 10,400 individuals, the report said.
Despite the obvious regional focus of neo-Nazi movements, Schaeuble said he was against brandmarking the east and neglecting the west's extremism problem.
Reacting to criticism directed at east German police, who have been accused of ignoring neo-Nazi crimes, he pledged that there is no state or area in Germany where xenophobic crime will get the upper hand.
"No-go areas do not and must not exist in Germany," Schaeuble said, when asked whether he agreed with Heye.
The situation is especially uncertain as more than 1.5 million foreigners are expected to flock to Germany in less than three weeks for the FIFA Soccer World Cup, a month-long tournament featuring teams from 32 countries.
Schaeuble said authorities will do everything to ensure the tournament will not be abused by the country's neo-Nazis "as a platform to spread their despicable ideas."
But just that will be the goal of Germany's neo-Nazis, who have announced they will stage several propaganda marches in the wake of the tournament, including parades of solidarity with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his anti-Semitic remarks.
The far-right National Party of Germany, or NPD, has announced it will advertise "creatively" in Leipzig ahead of the Iran-Angola game. Some 70,000 tournament fold-out schedules printed by the NPD have been confiscated; they sported the racist rant: "White: Not simply the color of our jersey! For a real national team!" in a reference to the white-shirted German soccer team, which includes Gerald Asamoah, a black German of Ghanaian descent.
"We know that (neo-Nazis) are eager to use the event to further their goals," Heinz Fromm, head of the agency, said at the same conference.
Schaeuble added Berlin will use any option the constitution lends the government to bar neo-Nazi propaganda marches during the World Cup, as those events are often accompanied by violent clashes with left-wing extremists.
"They look for direct confrontation," Schaeuble said.
Left-wing extremist crimes have surged even to a greater degree in 2005 -- 60.1 percent, to 2,305 total cases, with most cases directed at their ideological opponents from the far-right. Germany's roughly 5,500 violent left-wingers are most active in Berlin and Lower Saxony, according to the report.
Islamist terrorism remains a threat to Germany's security, Schaeuble said, adding that attacks in and on Germany were so far prevented, "a sign for the professional work done by our services," and of successful international intelligence cooperation, he said. Islamist organizations in Germany rose by four, to a total of 28.
Schaeuble, of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrat Union, said a "fundamentally interpreted Sharia must never push aside our basic values," praising last year's decision to ban an Islamist club in Neu-Ulm in Bavaria.
