Nine Jailed From Nazi Radio

Nine men who operated a neo-Nazi Internet radio station were jailed for up to three years and three months by a court in Koblenz, Germany, April 17.

A further nine of the 18 defendants, who were aged between 20 and 37 and lived in various parts of the country, were given suspended sentences.

All were found guilty of disseminating far-right ideology, glorifying the Nazis and spreading racist and anti-Semitic propaganda.

“The entire radio station, as well as contributions to online forums, were recognisably far-right and were aimed at spreading National Socialist ideology,” prosecutors claimed in a statement put before the Koblenz court.

The radio station, Widerstandradio (or “Radio Resistance”), operated from July 2009 until authorities closed it down in November 2010. The shutdown involved 270 police officers taking part in more than 20 raids across 10 German states.

The Federal Crime Office (BKA) said the 24-hour station used a computer server in the U.S. and listeners would register under false names and addresses.

“These investigations are a strong hint to people running other extreme-right Internet radio stations that dissemination of songs with extreme-right wing and xenophobic lyrics, even on the Internet, will be pursued,” said BKA head Joerg Ziercke.

He said his organisation had noticed a growing trend among far-right groups to use music to recruit young people.

Last month the BKA said that over the past decade the number of people with the potential to carry out far-right violence in Germany had doubled to around 9,000.