A group of actors were beaten up by neo-Nazis in the eastern German city of Halberstadt and have accused the police of being slow to respond. The region's premier says he is appalled by the attack.
A group of actors who were attacked and injured by neo-Nazis in the eastern city of Halberstadt on Friday night have accused the police of handling their case too hesitantly.
The theater group of 14 actors were on their way to a pub after a debut performance on Friday when they were attacked and beaten up by eight far-right youths. Several of the victims had teeth knocked out and required medical treatment for broken noses, injured ribs and jaws and eye injuries.
Far-right extremists attacked the actors because one of them had a punk hairstyle, newspaper reports said.
Police failed to arrest the 22-year-old main assailant even though he returned to the scene while the victims were being questioned, a regional government official said. "The man was checked by police but released before they found out about his prior convictions," Rüdiger Erben, interior ministry secretary for the state of Saxony-Anhalt, told Mitteldeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
The man, a known neo-Nazi, was arrested again on Sunday evening. Police are still searching for seven other assailants.
A number of people witnessed the attack and did nothing to help. The theater group had just finished a performance of the "Rocky Horror Picture Show" and one of the actors had a punk hairstyle in keeping with his role. That appears to have been enough to provoke the neo-Nazis they came across, newspaper reports said.
The premier of Saxony-Anhalt, Wolfgang Böhmer, said he was appalled by the case.
"It's a sad fact that far-right extremists are becoming increasingly brutal. If people are attacked and injured just because of their appearance it's an appalling crime," Böhmer said.
Source: Spiegel
Source: Spiegel
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