Protests against neo-nazi concert planned in New York City

This video is called The Anti-Nazi League [in Britain] 1977-1981.

From the New York Sun, 24 October 2007:

Neo-Nazi Band Set To Play Amid Protests

By MARUXA RELAÑO

Special to the Sun

October 24, 2007

Protests are mounting against plans for a Croatian rock star, Marko Perkovic, who critics say glorifies the Nazis, to perform in New York.

The performer, known as Thompson, combines folk-inspired melodies with the electric thrill of heavy metal and nationalistic lyrics.

While Thompson’s songs promote love of God, family, and his nation, the singer and songwriter is also said to glorify war and Croatia’s Nazi past, and that has groups lining up in protest of his two New York shows at the Croatian Center in Midtown next month.

In past concerts, he has performed an anthem of the country’s Nazi-backed military regime — the Ustasha — that references extermination camps where tens of thousands of Jews, Serbs, and Gypsies were killed during World War II. He greets adoring crowds with a famous Ustasha slogan — and many respond with the Nazi salute.

“To glorify what happened during the Holocaust is not what we need in the world today, nor do we need it in this city — after the events we have recently been through. To play with that for the sake of music, or even conviction, I find it totally repugnant,” the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Task Force Against Hate, Mark Weitzman, said.

Mr. Weitzman said his group is in conversations with the Croatian Embassy, whose government has been trying to distance the country from the strong nationalism of the 1990s as part of a serious bid to join the European Union in 2010.

“I get the sense that they are not very happy about the concert, but I’m not sure how they are going to respond. Hopefully there will be the right response,” Mr. Weitzman said.

Thompson in Australia: here.

About Thompson, scroll down in this interview.

Neo-nazis in Germany: here.