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Jail for German protester who gave Nazi salute
BERLIN, Sept 14, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A German court on Friday sentenced a 34-
year-old man to five months in jail for giving the illegal Hitler salute
during a far-right protest in the eastern city of Chemnitz late last month.
The verdict was harsher than the suspended sentence handed to another
suspect a day earlier, who had also performed the Nazi greeting during
rallies sparked by the killing of a German man, allegedly by asylum seekers.
A prison sentence was deemed appropriate in this case because the
accused had a number of previous convictions, including for assault, a
spokesman for the district court in Chemnitz told regional broadcaster MDR.
Thousands of demonstrators had answered a call by the far-right party
AfD and the Islamophobic PEGIDA street movement to march over the fatal
stabbing on August 26 of Daniel H.
A handful of people were seen publicly making the illegal straight-armed
salute during the heated rallies while others were shouting anti-foreigner
slurs in scenes that shocked Germany.
BSS/AFP/RY/1930 hrs