Indian visitors in Germany attacked

BERLIN -- Dozens of young Germans attacked a group of Indian visitors to a village in the eastern state of Saxony over the weekend, chasing them through the streets and smashing up the restaurant where the Indians had taken refuge, the local police confirmed yesterday.

The event, which took place Saturday in Mügeln, was witnessed by a large crowd, which apparently did not take action to stop the attack against the eight Indians. The Saxony police did not release news of the attack until late Sunday. "We are not ruling out a xenophobic motive," said the police chief of Saxony, Bernd Merbitz.

Saxony has a small but growing far-right movement that supports the National Democratic Party. The party has been represented in the regional legislature since the 2005 elections. Brandenburg, another eastern state, also has a far-right movement that is represented in the regional legislature.

According to the police in Saxony, more than 70 police officers were needed to stop the violence. In addition to the Indians, four Germans, including two police officers, were injured. Other details about the Indians were not immediately available. The authorities have called for an investigation. There have been no arrests.

The cause of the attack on the Indians, who had been invited to a festival, is unclear. Late Saturday, a scuffle broke out in the festival tent and about 50 youths chased the eight Indians, chanting racist slogans, according to the Leipziger Volkszeitung, a regional newspaper. Reinhard Bottcher, chief of the local police, said he could not confirm whether the mob had shouted racist insults.

When the Indians fled to a pizzeria, the Germans smashed windowpanes and damaged the pizzeria owner's car. "If the police had not come, something much worse might have happened," the Leipziger Volkszeitung quoted the owner as saying.

Gotthard Deuse, mayor of Mügeln, was quoted by the paper as saying that the event had been racially motivated and that rightist slogans had been chanted. Bottcher said he thought alcohol might have played a role.

There is growing concern of some German politicians about the increasing number of attacks by rightists. Two months ago, some actors were beaten by skinheads in Brandenburg. Police then were sharply criticized for not having responded quickly enough.

During a debate in May in the Bundestag, the lower house of Parliament, politicians called on Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government of conservatives and Social Democrats to do more to curb extremism. The debate coincided with a similar debate in Saxony's regional legislature after Holger Apfel, a legislator belonging to the National Democratic Party, vented racist insults against foreigners.