29 German policeman have actually been suspended for apparently sharing neo-Nazi material on their phones, consisting of representations of refugees in gas chambers. Â
More than 100 files including reactionary product were shared on WhatsApp groups going back to 2012, with the most current message sent out on August 27 this year.
The images consisted of representations of Adolf Hitler, the swastika flag and the shooting of a young black individual, authorities validated.
The interior minister of the North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW), the western state where the officers are based, stated an examination had actually been introduced into the ‘disgusting neo-Nazi, racist and anti-refugee vitriol’.
Herbert Reul informed an interview on Wednesday: ‘This news has hit the police at its core. It is a disgrace for the NRW police’.
The minister included that the case had actually left him ‘speechless’ and had ‘shaken police to the bone’.
The product was exchanged in a minimum of 5 WhatsApp groups utilized totally or mainly by policeman who operated at the exact same authorities precinct in Muelheim an der Ruhr.
The presence of the material emerged by possibility, after authorities in Mülheim seized the smart phone of a policeman who was being examined for sharing categorized info with a reporter.
More than 200 policeman were associated with raids on 34 police headquarters and personal houses connected to 11 primary suspects on Wednesday early morning.
‘We have to ask unpleasant questions of ourselves,’ Reul stated. ‘Who knew about this? Why was this tolerated for years? By whom?’
It is prohibited to screen Nazi signs in Germany, implying a few of the officers might be charged with sharing Nazi propaganda and hate speech. Others are implicated of not reporting their coworkers’ actions.
The case puts a spotlight on neo-Nazi ideology in Germany’s police – a concern that senior security authorities have actually formerly minimized even as they cautioned of the growing risk of reactionary violence in the nation.
German district attorneys stated last month they were examining a retired law enforcement officer thought of sending out threatening e-mails, signed with the name of a gang of neo-Nazi killers, to popular figures of immigrant background.
The case emerged a month after Germany’s leading security authorities at the federal level, Horst Seehofer, declined require an examination into the degree of racial profiling by the authorities, firmly insisting that there was ‘no structural problem.’
On Wednesday, Seehofer’s spokesperson warned versus making ‘sweeping allegations’versus the entire German authorities.
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