Jail time for German protester who gave Nazi salute at Chemnitz

Man gets 5-month sentence due to previous violent acts; a second man received a suspended sentence a day earlier for giving the banned salute during anti-immigrant protests

Far right demonstrators shout during a demonstration in Chemnitz, eastern Germany, Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018, after several nationalist groups called for marches protesting the killing of a German man last week, allegedly by migrants from Syria and Iraq. (AP /Jens Meyer)
Far right demonstrators shout during a demonstration in Chemnitz, eastern Germany, Saturday, Sept. 1, 2018, after several nationalist groups called for marches protesting the killing of a German man last week, allegedly by migrants from Syria and Iraq. (AP /Jens Meyer)

BERLIN — A German court on Friday sentenced a 34-year-old man to five months in jail for giving the illegal Hitler salute during a far-right protest in the eastern city of Chemnitz late last month.

The verdict was harsher than the suspended sentence handed to another suspect a day earlier, who had also performed the Nazi greeting during rallies sparked by the killing of a German man, allegedly by asylum seekers.

A prison sentence was deemed appropriate in this case because the accused had a number of previous convictions, including for assault, a spokesman for the district court in Chemnitz told regional broadcaster MDR.

Thousands of demonstrators had answered a call by the far-right party AfD and the Islamophobic PEGIDA street movement to march over the fatal stabbing on August 26 of Daniel H.

A handful of people were seen publicly making the illegal straight-armed salute during the heated rallies while others were shouting anti-foreigner slurs in scenes that shocked Germany.

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