Neo-Nazis 'won't hijack' World Cup

BERLIN - Germany pledged yesterday not to let far-rightists hijack next month's football World Cup as it fought a wave of negative publicity about racially motivated attacks.

"We will do everything to make sure that the soccer World Cup cannot be abused by extremist organisations to spread their detestable ideas," Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

"We will not tolerate any form of extremism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism," he added at the launch of the domestic intelligence agency's annual report which showed a 27 per cent rise in politically motivated crime by far-rightists.

Intelligence chief Heinz Fromm said it was clear that neo-Nazis would try to exploit the World Cup for propaganda purposes, noting that some have planned rallies in support of anti-Israel statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Concern about far-right violence has mounted after several highly publicised attacks on people of foreign appearance.

The victims included a German-Ethiopian man who was beaten into a coma last month and a left-wing Berlin politician of Turkish origin who suffered a vicious mugging last week.

Schaeuble said it was worrying that more than 5 per cent of young men aged 18 to 24 had voted for the far-right NPD party in last year's federal election. In parts of ex-communist eastern Germany, that rose to nearly 10 per cent.

The report estimated the number of neo-Nazis in Germany had risen by 300 last year to 4100 and the number of right-wing "extremists" prepared to engage in violence rose by 400 to 10,400.

The total number of right-wing militants dropped to around 39,000 in 2005 from some 40,700 in the previous year.

- REUTERS