German lawmakers move to ban neo-Nazi party
People walk in front of a big wall draped with flags with Nazi symbols in Berlin’s Lustgarten in front of the Old Museum. A new study has found that 20 percent of Germans still harbor latent anti-Semitism.
German lawmakers representing the country's 16 states unanimously backed a petition to outlaw the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany, Expatica reported.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has not yet given her support to the application, BBC News reported. A similar attempt to ban the party in 2003 not only failed, but served to strengthen the National Democratic Party, she has said.
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"We are convinced that the NPD is in violation of the constitution," Christine Lieberknecht, the premier of the eastern state of Thuringia said, DW.DE reported.
The party is often accused of promoting neo-Nazi views, with German intelligence officials saying that the party takes a "favorable view" of Nazism from the Hitler era, the BBC reported.
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