Raid on neo-Nazi group

GERMAN police raided offices of the country's largest neo-Nazi group yesterday, searching for evidence that the organisation is acting illegally against the constitution.

The interior ministry said in a statement the large-scale operation in nine states began in the early morning hours against the "Help Organisation for National Political Prisoners and their Families" (HNG), an association which supports right-wing extremists and their relatives.

Deputy Interior Minister Klaus-Dieter Fritsche called the HNG a threat to society. The liberal Free Democrats, junior partners in the centre-right government, have called for it to be banned as anti-constitutional.

The group aims to strengthen neo-Nazi attitudes among like-minded felons who have been imprisoned, the ministry said. It wanted inmates not only to remain part of the far-right movement but to turn them into "combatants against the system".

Reuters