Five right-wing extremists have been sentenced to fines in a large-scale proceeding over antisemitic statements by the district court in Dortmund.
The judges found the accused guilty of incitement on Monday and imposed fines of between 4,000 and 10,000 euros, as a court spokeswoman said. Five other accused neo-Nazis were acquitted.
The public prosecutor charged the ten defendants with marching through Dortmund at two consecutive rallies on September 21, 2018 and chanting antisemitic slogans. Videos distributed in online networks showed how participants chanted the slogan “Anyone who loves Germany is an antismite”, among other things. Numerous demonstrators waved Reich flags. The extreme right-wing micro-party The Right had called for the demonstrations.
One of the demonstrations in particular, at which antisemitic slogans were shouted and Bengalos set on fire, was rated by the court as a threatening scene. The event was likely to disturb public peace. According to the court, the five acquitted defendants could not be proven with certainty that they had taken part in the demonstration. In the other case, they participated in the previous rally, where no pyrotechnics were ignited.
The demonstrations caused dismay and horror in the public. At the time, there was also sharp criticism of the police, who did not intervene. The operation later occupied the interior committee of the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament. Due to space limitations, the trial took place in a leisure center. The process took around seven months.
