Thousands protest in German town against neo-Nazi party meeting

Up to 4,000 demonstrators on Saturday protested against a congress of the minority neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), saying there was no place in this Bavarian town for Nazis. A large police turnout prevented incidents after it was feared there could be clashes with left-wing extremists. A police spokesman said only 10 people were briefly detained Saturday.

Various local associations and several mainstream political parties had called for a major demonstration against the NPD congress with the slogan: "Bamberg is multi-colored, not brown." Under Nazism in Germany, brown was the color of Nazi stormtroopers' uniforms, and the color is still associated in German minds with the Nazis.

Shops in the historic centre of this ancient town carried placards in their windows with slogans such as: "Defend democracy, there is no place here for Nazis." Meanwhile some 300 NPD delegates assembled in a concert hall for their two-day meeting.

After the failure of attempts to get the courts to ban the congress, the civic authorities were obliged to permit the rental of the hall by the NPD. A fringe group with only 7,300 members, the NPD is the most radical of the extreme right-wing parties in Germany with a policy which is openly anti-foreigner, racist and anti-Semitic.

It has no deputies in the Bundestag, Germany's federal lower house in Berlin. But it does have deputies in two regional parliaments, in Saxony and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, both in former East Germany, where there is a high unemployment rate.

Although the media were officially allowed for the first time to attend all debates at an NPD congress, several German journalists were refused any access at all to the hall Saturday. They included a team from the main television channel ARD.

ABS/CBN