German top court hears plea to ban far-right NPD

NPD members have joined regular "anti-Islamisation" marches by the right-wing Pegida organisation, based in Dresden. 

 

The NPD's anti-immigrant stance is part of widespread German anxiety about the influx of non-EU migrants, many of them Muslim Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans fleeing war and human rights abuses.

Germany severely restricts the power to ban a political party - a legacy of de-Nazification after World War Two.

Only the Bundesrat, Bundestag (lower house) or government can launch a banning procedure.

And only the constitutional court can impose a ban, if two-thirds of the judges back it.

Critics of the new case against the NPD fear that a ban could turn far-right extremists into martyrs. The party has about 5,200 members.

There are two post-war precedents for such bans in Germany. The West German authorities banned the Socialist Reich Party in 1952 and the Communist Party of Germany in 1957.

A banning order forces a party to completely disband and its assets can be seized, the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle reports.