Football fans planning to visit Germany for the World Cup games next month got a dose of bad news on Saturday, with a newspaper reporting an increase in neo-Nazis and right-wing extremists ready to engage in violence.
The Iranian news agency Iran News reported that following Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declarations against Israel and the Jews, German Neo-Nazis are planning to hold a demonstration against Israel on June 21 in the city of Leipzig during the match between the Iran and Angola teams.
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The German police asked the court to prohibit demonstrations during the World Cup games in the cities where matches are to be held.
A new report by Germany's BfV domestic intelligence office says the number of neo-Nazis in Germany rose to 4,100 last year from 3,800 in 2004, while the number of right-wing extremists prepared to engage in violence rose by 400 to 10,400, the Bild am Sonntag newspaper said in an article to appear on Sunday.
Simultaneously, the number of skinhead bands rose to 142 from 106 and skinhead concerts by 40 to 192, it said.
Racially-motivated mugging
However, the total number of right-wing extremists dropped to around 39,000 in 2005 from some 40,700 in the previous year, the Bild am Sonntag report said.
Highlighting the danger to that extremism can pose to foreign-looking people here, a left-wing politician of Turkish origin was severely injured in Berlin after he was attacked in what police said appeared to be a racially-motivated mugging.
The 56-year-old Sayan Giyasettin, a member of the Berlin state parliament for the Left-PDS party, told police that he was attacked by two young men late on Friday night who left him with severe head injuries, the Berlin police said on their website.
Describing the attack, Giyasettin told Berlin's rbb radio: "One of them hit me with a bottle on my head and face. I tried to run away ...'You shit Turk. We'll get you,' he said."
Such news will likely be unsettling for foreign football fans, who are expected to begin flocking to Germany next month for the 2006 World Cup taking place in 12 German cities.
Around one million foreign fans are expected to visit Germany for the month-long tournament, which begins on June 9.
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