Human Rights - Racism Isn't Dead

It's just sleeping. German Jews have come to the defense of Indians who were recently targeted in a racist attack in Germany, reports AFP via Raw Story.

The general secretary of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Stephan Kramer, said:

"Officials make the same statements every time (there is an attack on foreigners) but there is never a noticeable change in the strategy to fight xenophobia," Kramer told the online news service Netzeitung.

"We must relaunch the debate about no-go areas."

During a summer festival Saturday night, a group of about 50 Germans, some shouting neo-Nazi slogans, chased eight Indians through the streets of the town of Muegeln and broke down the door of a pizzeria where they had sought refuge.

Three of the Indians, residents of Muegeln or other towns in the region, were so brutally beaten they needed hospital treatment while the others escaped with minor cuts and bruises. Witnesses said bystanders refused to intervene.

This story needs international coverage. We must all stand together, or, as someone more famous said, hang together, or we will surely all hang separately. It's time to put a stop to such thuggery.

Kramer said it was "a bitter truth" that foreigners should be warned against living in some areas of the depressed former communist east, where he saw an escalating problem with racist attacks.

"Yesterday it was people of colour, today it is foreigners and tomorrow it will be gays and lesbians or perhaps Jews," he said.

The Indian government has contacted the German government and is pursuing the matter:

The Indian foreign ministry said Tuesday it was seeking further information from Berlin on the attack.

"We have taken up the matter with the German government and have requested that they take action to address this issue and prevent future incidents of the kind," it said in a statement in New Delhi.

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