World

Germany's Far-Right Grows Online

January 22, 2001 / 12:23 PM EST / AP

The number of German Internet sites offering far-right propaganda more than doubled last year, mirroring a big rise in criminal offenses with a far-right motive, the German government said Friday.

Authorities counted some 800 sites with far-right content -- up from 330 the year before -- and many of them posted on U.S.-based servers, out of the reach of German law, the government said. The number of such sites has shot up annually since 32 were counted in 1996.

Investigators examined 298 web pages for possible offenses and ruled that 81 of them had a case to answer, the government said in a reply to a request for information from the Party of Democratic Socialism, the successor to the East German communist party.

"No shortcomings were discernible in the investigation process as far as Internet pages on German providers are concerned," a government statement said.

The government noted, however, that attempts to pursue the people behind offending Internet sites run into difficulties when home pages are posted anonymously on U.S.-based servers, where freedom of expression takes precedence over measures to fight hate speech.

Those sites can be pursued only if they call for violence against a person or object, the government statement said, adding that Germany would like to see "international minimum standards for the Internet" that would make incitement to racial hatred punishable.

Government statistics released earlier this month confirmed fears that far-right offenses in the country reached their highest level since World War II in 2000, surging nearly 60 percent from 1999. Violent crimes with a far-right, anti-Semitic or anti-foreigner motivation -- ranging from robbery to murder -- jumped by 34 percent.

Concern over the past year at a surge in neo-Nazi violence has spurred the government to pledge a crackdown on the far right and to call for ordinary Germans to stand up for the victims.