Germany Seeks to Ban Far Right Party

Germany’s top security officials say they are formally launching an investigation to determine whether a far right party should be banned over its antidemocratic convictions.

Germany’s Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich said Friday he reached agreement with his counterparts from the country’s 16 states to gather material for a trial seeking to ban the NPD party. They say the National Democratic Party is “inhuman, hostile to democracy and anti-Semitic.”

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The hurdles for banning a party are high in Germany and only the country’s Constitutional Court can do so–and it rejected a first attempt to block the NPD in 2003.