By IRNA,
Berlin : Foreigners became victims of xenophobic assaults in two separate incidents in Berlin over the past day, the daily Der Tagesspiegel reported Tuesday.
In the first case, a 27-year-old Serbian man and his pregnant wife were hit and abused by three unidentified assailants as they picked up their children from day-care center in Berlin’s Weissensee district.
Meanwhile, a 15-year-old foreign boy whose nationality was not immediately known, was assaulted by two men as he was on his way to school in Berlin’s Schoeneberg neighborhood.
The victim suffered bruises and cuts on his body.
Germany has witnessed a series of vicious xenophobic and racial attacks in recent months.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble has repeatedly warned of a growing far-right problem in his country.
He has pointed to the far-right problem as a “steadily growing danger.”
Schaeuble has also voiced concern that the number of far-right crimes between 2005 and 2006 rose from 15,000 to 18,000 offenses, indicating a 9.3 percent increase.
Meanwhile, the number of anti-foreigner attacks hovered at 511 in 2006, showing a 37 percent rise from the previous year.
Political observers link the dramatic rise in the number of far-right crimes to the recent success of neo-Nazi parties in key regional elections in several east German states.
Young neo-Nazis feel more and more emboldened to commit hate crimes, knowing that police won’t charge them with an offense.
Most of the suspects implicated in far-right crimes are juveniles.
Hate crime experts and sociologists have repeatedly stressed that Germany’s political leadership lacks a clear and effective strategy to fight neo-Nazi crimes in the wake of a series of brutal racial attacks against foreigners over the past months.