In Germany, Concern Over Racial Violence at World Cup

by

in

From The Washington Post:

On June 21, neo-Nazi sympathizers are scheduled to hold a rally in the city of Leipzig before a match between Iran and Angola, to show support for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel and denied the Holocaust happened.

The rally sponsor, the far-right National Democratic Party, caused controversy this spring by publishing a glossy tournament schedule with a photo of a German soccer player and the headline, “White — Not Only a Color for Jersey!” Critics called it a thinly veiled insult to foreign-born players on Germany’s national team.

Last week, a former German government spokesman warned World Cup fans from abroad “and anyone with a different skin color” to avoid towns and villages outside Berlin and other rural parts of eastern Germany. “They may not leave with their lives,” said Uwe-Karsten Heye, who served as chief spokesman under former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and now heads a civil rights group.

Here.