GERMANY: A German anti-fascist campaigner will appear in a Stuttgart court this morning charged with the public display and sale of forbidden Nazi symbols.
Jürgen Kamm is the manager of Nix Gut, a left-wing organisation with a mail-order business selling badges, T-shirts, stickers and patches carrying a "No Nazi" symbol of a swastika struck through with a red line, similar to "No Smoking" signs.
German law forbids the display of swastikas, the initials of the Nazi party NSDAP, the phrases Sieg Heil and Heil Hitler and the stiff-armed Nazi salute.
There are clauses in the law that allow the use of banned Nazi symbols for one-off protests and in artistic or educational work, but the state prosecutor in Stuttgart has told Nix Gut its commercial use of the swastika is not covered.
The case arose three years ago when a German mother found a mail-order catalogue from the company in her son's bedroom and informed the police.
The lawyer for Mr Kamm will argue in court today that it is nonsense to think that a struck-out swastika is encouraging fascism or making national socialism acceptable in polite society.
"A sign with a struck-through cigarette doesn't encourage smoking," said Mr Kamm.
"We are doing this out of complete conviction. We hope that anti-fascism isn't banned once again in Germany."