GERMANY-SPD/BOMB THREAT German SPD evacuates party HQ after bomb threat with racist link

Record ID: 142366

  • Title: GERMANY-SPD/BOMB THREAT German SPD evacuates party HQ after bomb threat with racist link
  • Date: 25th August 2015
  • Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (AUGUST 25, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF EXTERIOR OF SOCIAL DEMOCRATS (SPD) PARTY HEADQUARTERS, WILLY-BRANDT-HAUS, WHICH WAS EVACUATED AFTER A BOMB THREAT POLICE CAR PARKED OUTSIDE ENTRANCE SPD EMPLOYEES SEATED ON STEPS VARIOUS OF SPD SECRETARY GENERAL, YASMIN FAHIMI, IN DISCUSSION ON STREET POLICE OFFICERS LEAVING SPD BUILDING (SOUNDBITE) (German) SPD SECRETARY GENERAL, YASMIN FAHIMI, SAYING: "Irrespective of this (bomb threat), we have received a flood of racist emails over the past 24 hours, some of them with criminal content which we will follow up on and report to the police. We believe that this bomb threat against Willy-Brandt-Haus is a part of this hate and violence." POLICE CAR PARKED OUTSIDE BUILDING (SOUNDBITE) (German) SPD SECRETARY GENERAL, YASMIN FAHIMI, SAYING: "It is meant as an attack against our constitution and our democracy. For us at the SPD, we will not give a single millimetre to our position." SPD HEADQUARTERS
  • Embargoed: 9th September 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA3HQC1GWQGM6IJTD1X0U4KUQFP
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Germany's Social Democrats (SPD) evacuated their headquarters building in Berlin on Tuesday (August 25) after a bomb threat the party said was linked to its Chairman Sigmar Gabriel's visit to a town where anti-foreigner violence has erupted.
    The SPD's general secretary Yasmin Fahimi, said that the centre-left party that shares power with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives received many threats with racist overtones after Gabriel visited the eastern town of Heidenau on Monday (August 24).
    "[W]e have received a flood of racist emails over the past 24 hours, some of them with criminal content which we will follow up on and report to the police. We believe that this bomb threat against Willy-Brandt-Haus is a part of this hate and violence," Fahimi told reporters, standing outside the party headquarters while police searched the building.
    More than 30 police were injured in clashes in Heidenau, near Dresden, early on Saturday (August 22) when a mob of several hundred people, many of them drunk, began pelting officers with bottles and fireworks. Some shouted "Heil Hitler".
    Gabriel had said in Heidenau that Germany would not "give a single millimetre to these far-right mobs" and added those in Heidenau attacking refugees "have nothing to do with Germany. This is not the Germany we want."
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