SPORT: Safety Becomes the First Goal

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Clive Freeman

BERLIN, May 20 2006 (IPS) - With the World Cup less than three weeks away, the German government continues to insist the country is “one of the safest places in the world” despite warnings from officials that foreigners – especially black people – run the risk of being racially assaulted in some eastern areas.

Interior minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said in Berlin this week that the country is “safe for foreign visitors,” and that the 12 stadiums where the games will be played (Jun. 9-Jul. 9) are “totally secure..” But former government spokesman Uwe-Karsten Heye does not share that view.

Heye, once a close aide of former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, provoked heated debate by referring in an interview with the Social Democratic Party newspaper Vorwaerts to “no-go” areas in certain parts of Germany. He said he was speaking of “medium-sized towns in Brandenburg and elsewhere where I would not advise anyone with a different skin colour to go. They might not possibly leave alive.”

Former defence minister Peter Struck said Heye’s remarks were “hardly helpful.” Wolfgang Huber, Protestant bishop of Berlin-Brandenburg, said Heye had “gone too far.”

Initiatives have been in place in the eastern state of Brandenburg for years against racism and xenophobia, the bishop said. “There is certainly recognition that such violence has to be combated.”

But several groups supported Heye. Amnesty International thanked Heye for spotlighting “a serious problem”. Arwa Hassan, programme officer working for Transparency International (TI), the anti-corruption organisation based in Berlin, told IPS that Heye was right to point to the danger.

“Black people especially run risks of being taunted and accosted by trouble-makers in some areas of the country,” she said.

Hassan, whose parents are of Egyptian descent, said she was recently assaulted by neo-Nazi elements on a tram in northern Berlin. “They made insulting remarks about my being a foreigner, yanked my hair and pushed me around. When I sought help from the driver they leapt off the tram.”

Authorities are working to guard against such incidents during the World Cup. Dr.Ulrich Maly, lord mayor of Nuremberg, told IPS that tough security measures had been put in place, and that these would be “under continuous scrutiny throughout the tournament.”

Tackled about soccer violence and the record of some England fans, Maly said “no other country has been more preoccupied with its fans than England. Those fans with known records of criminal violence will not be allowed to travel to Germany next month.”

Used to fielding visitors’ questions about Nuremberg’s notorious role during the Nazi era, Dr.Maly said: “We say that was an awful chapter in our history. Now you are seeing another, that of a city which is modern, tolerant, open to the world, and very excited at the prospect of welcoming many guests to Germany this summer.”

Nuremberg, the second largest city in the state of Bavaria, with half a million inhabitants, is preparing for a huge influx of soccer fans when Mexico and Iran play their opening Group D match at the Franken stadium (Jun. 11) followed by games between England and Trinidad/Tobago (Jun. 15), Japan-Croatia (Jun. 18) and Ghana-USA (Jun. 22.)

Franken stadium is located in the midst of a vast 25sq km leisure complex which formerly served as a venue for Nazi rallies. Gigantic buildings remain from this period, such as the Zeppelin grandstand from where Adolf Hitler once made his speeches.

Now Nuremberg and the other cities where matches will be played are looking at a different – and of course far lesser – kind of trouble.

A police sports information agency (ZIS) has been compiling files on thousands of German soccer hooligans.

Duesseldorf-based Andreas Morbach, deputy head of ZIS, says the police have been planning for the event ever since the World Cup draw was made. “Police colleagues began contacting partners in the 32 participating countries and intensifying already existing links,” he told IPS.

Some 250,000 German police officials and plainclothes staff will be on duty, he said. ZIS is one of the information gathering units, and it will work alongside foreign police.

“Most of us will be working under the same roof, collating and analysing information round the clock,” Morbach said. “It should prove a great challenge.”