• Report: Anti-Semitic incidents surged in 2012

    Jean-Philippe Arles / Reuters, file

    A man comforts a school child as they leave the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse, southwestern France, March 19, 2012 after a man on a scooter opened fire outside the school killing two children and one adult, a police source said. Five people were injured in the attack, which occurred as students were arriving for morning classes at the Ozar Hatorah school, a city official said.

    By Ariel David, The Associated Press

    TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli researchers and Jewish leaders on Sunday reported a 30 percent jump in anti-Semitic violence and vandalism last year, topped by a deadly school shooting in France, and expressed alarm about the rise of far-right parties in Hungary, Greece and other countries.

    Following a two-year decline in the figures, the annual report on worldwide anti-Semitic incidents recorded 686 attacks in 34 countries, ranging from physical violence to vandalism of synagogues and cemeteries, compared to 526 in 2011. The report was issued at Tel Aviv University, in cooperation with the European Jewish Congress, an umbrella group representing Jewish communities across Europe.

    The report linked the March 2012 shooting at a Jewish school in Toulouse, where an extremist Muslim gunman killed four, to a series of copycat attacks, particularly in France, where physical assaults on Jews almost doubled.

    Researchers who presented the report at the university on Sunday said they had also found a direct correlation between the strengthening of extreme right-wing parties in some European countries and high levels of anti-Semitic incidents, as well as attacks on other minorities and immigrants.

    They said Europe's economic crisis was fueling the success of parties like Jobbik in Hungary, Golden Dawn in Greece and Svoboda in Ukraine.

    Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress, called for strong action by the European Union, charging that governments — particularly Hungary —were not doing enough to curb these parties' activities and protect minorities.


    "Neo-Nazis have been once again legalized in Europe, they are openly sitting in parliaments," said Moshe Kantor, the president of the European Jewish Congress.

    Golden Dawn swept into Greece's parliament for the first time in June on an anti-immigrant platform. The party rejects the neo-Nazi label but is fond of Nazi literature and references. In Hungary, a Jobbik lawmaker has called for Jews to be screened as potential security risks. The leader of Ukraine's Svoboda denies his party is anti-Semitic but has repeatedly used derogatory terms to refer to Jews.

    The report by the university's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry found little correlation between the increase of anti-Semitic attacks and Israel's military operation in Gaza in November. While there was a spike in incidents at the time, it was much smaller in number and intensity than the one that followed the Toulouse attack, said Roni Stauber, the chief researcher on the project.

    "This shows that the desire to harm Jews is deeply rooted among extremist Muslims and right-wingers, regardless of events in the Middle East," he said.

    The release of the report was timed to coincide with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was starting Sunday at sundown.

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • The sad life of Happy Sindane comes to a brutal end

    STR/AFP/Getty Images

    Happy Sindane is shown at a Pretoria, South Africa, police station in 2003, when he was about 18. He became famous in racially sensitive South Africa after claiming that he was white and had been abducted by a black family. He was found slain on Monday.

    By Chapman Bell, NBC News

    JOHANNESBURG -- A man in racially charged South Africa who became famous a decade ago for claiming to be a white slave for a black family has been slain.

    Happy Sindane was found dead in a ditch on Monday in the town of Tweefontain, about 80 miles from Johannesburg.

    A 58-year-old suspect, Khuwana Simon Mthimunye, was charged with murder and will be kept in custody for an April 11 bail hearing, Col. Leonard Hlathi, a police spokesman for the area, said Tuesday.

    Though happy by name, Sindane led a life, probably less than 30 years long, that was plagued by tragedy.

    The Star newspaper in South Africa reported an interview with police Capt. Vusi Mahlangu saying that a fight broke out between Sindane and the suspect over a bottle of brandy at a tavern the night before Sindane's body was found.

    The fight was broken up and the two left the tavern together. Later, an empty bottle of brandy and a hat belonging to the suspect were found next to Sindane's body, the paper reported. NBC News could not independently confirm the account. Calls to Mahlangu went unanswered.

    "The post-mortem reads that Mr. Sindane died of head injuries. A stone was found by officers at the scene that suggests he was hit in the head with it until death," Hlathi said.

    "His body was identified by relatives, community members and police. He was a well-known person. He was found about not far, about 300 meters (328 yards) from his home."

    Sindane became a household name in South Africa in 2003 when he claimed to police that he was white and was being enslaved by a black community. A court found that Sindane, then thought to be between 16 and 20 years old, was probably the son of Henry Nick, a white man, and a black domestic worker employed by him named Rina Mzayiya. His birth name was found to have been Abbey Mziyaye, and he had been brought up by the Sindane family after being given up by his birth parents.

    In 2004, Sindane was run over by a minivan and a car while lying in a road in his village. He also appeared later that year in Pretoria Magistrate's Court for allegedly breaking a taxi's windows with stones. The charges were dropped the following year.

    Sindane was awarded a settlement payout by the Dulux paint company after they used an image of him in an advertisement with the slogan "any color you can think of." Sindane said he never gave permission for the company to use his picture.

    The Pretoria News quoted Father Charles Kuppelwieser, who often tried to help Sindane, as saying: "He had the opportunity to study to become a carpenter, electrician or get involved with computers, but he did not have the basic skills," adding, "to us, Happy was always well-mannered and a good boy, but when the weekend came he would get drunk."

    The newspaper reported that Thomas Kabini, a cousin of Sindane's, said he had seen the deceased in the week before his death. "He was in good spirits and happy," Kabini said, according to the paper.

    Related:

    Oscar Pistorius' father accused of racism

    Africa's Rainbow Nation troubled by racist time warp

     

  • Race shame as crowd monkey noises taint European soccer

    The British government has called for Serbia's national soccer team to face sanctions for racial abuse against its players. NBC's Karl Bostic reports.

    By Peter Jeary, NBC News

    Britain's government has written to European soccer authorities demanding "tough sanctions" against Serbia after racist chants - including monkey noises - were heard at an international match with England on Tuesday night.

    Abuse was hurled at black members of the England Under-21 team in Krusevac, Serbia, according to England officials. The match ended in a series of angry tussles between players on on both sides.

    Monkey chants, which the England team captain said came from Serb supporters, were audible on above ambient crowd noise.

    British sports Minister Hugh Robertson said Wednesday the scenes at the end of the game were "disgraceful."

    "I have written to [Union of European Football Associations] President Michel Platini ... urging them to investigate immediately," he said.

    Trouble quickly escalated when Serbia's players and officials started attacking their England counterparts, in scenes broadcast on a British sports channel.

    YouTube user "Strvideosfull"

    A video clip, unverified by NBC News, appears to show monkey noises audible from the crowd at Tuesday night's U21 soccer match between England and Serbia

    The monkey chants could clearly be heard in clips uploaded to YouTube as black England defender Danny Rose was penalized for kicking the ball into the crowd in frustration. It was not clear where the noise had come from.

    Read more on this story at ITV News

    Rose, who had been standing apart from the main group of players after trouble broke out, mimicked a monkey by sticking his arms underneath his armpits to demonstrate the racial nature of the abuse he could hear.

    A spokesman for  Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, said he was "appalled" at the scenes, while Rose's father told ITV News he wanted Serbia banned from European soccer.

    In a statement, England Under-21 captain, Jordan Henderson, said: "There was a lot of racist abuse out there from the stands. There was also stones, coins and seats getting thrown at us.”

    The Football Association of Serbia also issued a statement, placing the blame on Rose, who, they said, behaved "in inappropriate, unsportsmanlike and vulgar manner towards the supporters on the stands at the stadium in Krusevac."

    Serbian player Milos Ninkovic, left, and England's Danny Rose, right, and Craig Dawson, center, clash during the match.

    The statement went on to say: “FA of Serbia absolutely refuses and denies that there were any occurrences of racism before and during the match at the stadium in Krusevac.”

    Serbia’s soccer fans are notorious for causing trouble at home and abroad. The European governing body,  UEFA, awarded Italy a 3-0 win over Serbia after a qualifier in Genoa, Italy, in 2010 was stopped when Serbia supporters threw flares and fireworks onto the field, burned a flag and broke barriers.

    The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report. ITV News is the UK partner of NBC News. 

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  • Europe soccer tournament overshadowed by racism claims, boycott

    Pawel Ulatowski / Reuters

    Netherlands soccer players attend a training session during the Euro 2012 at Wisla stadium in Krakow on Wednesday.

    By Marian Smith, msnbc.com

    Europe's biggest soccer tournament is being overshadowed by a boycott by Western European officials over alleged human rights abuses, and by widespread concerns about racist taunts by home crowds in Ukraine and Poland, co-hosts of the event.

    On Friday, just hours before the first game of the Euro 2012 tournament, European soccer governing body UEFA said in a statement that it had been informed of "isolated incidents of racist chanting" at the Netherlands team training session earlier in the week, further tarnishing the tournament.

    Dutch players heard monkey chants from some people among a crowd of 25,000 at a training session at Wisla Krakow's stadium in Poland on Wednesday, a spokesman for the Netherlands team said.

    ProSoccerTalk: The teams competing in the European Championships

    The training session came only hours after the team -- for decades a reflection of the multicultural makeup of the nation -- had made solemn and emotional visits to the former Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps close to Krakow. 

    "Some players did hear some monkey noises. That is why they moved to the other side of the pitch," the team spokeswoman said Friday.

    A recent British television documentary, entitled "Stadiums of Hate," fueled concerns about fans' behavior at club matches. The program was shown in Poland earlier this week and the issue dominated questions at the first news conference of UEFA President Michel Platini at the tournament.

    Platini promised that referees will stop matches if players suffer racist abuse. But he also warned players they would be shown a yellow card if they acted alone by walking off the field.

    Euro 2012 scoreboard

    "UEFA has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to discriminatory behavior and has given the power to referees to stop matches in case of any repeated racist behavior," UEFA said Friday. 

    Concerns over 'rule of law' in Ukraine
    The controversy over racism during the tournament came as the U.K. joined a growing boycott by Western European officials over the jailing of leading Ukrainian opposition figure Yulia Tymoshenko, which many believe was politically motivated.

    The British Foreign Office confirmed to msnbc.com on Friday that there would be no official British presence at England's three group-stage games, making it the latest in a string of countries to say it would not attend the tournament in protest of Ukraine's treatment of Tymoshenko.


    "No ministers will be attending group games at Euro 2012. We are keeping attendance at later stages of the tournament under review in the light of ministers' busy schedules ahead of the Olympics and widespread concerns about selective justice and the rule of law in Ukraine," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

    Several other European nations have already announced they will not be sending official representatives to the games, including France and Germany, which both also cited Ukraine's treatment of Tymoshenko.

    Tymoshenko is serving a seven-year jail term on charges of abuse of office, condemned as politically motivated by the West. Allegations she was beaten by prison officials prompted top EU officials to announce a boycott of championship games hosted in Ukraine.

    President Viktor Yanukovich still hopes the tournament will show the world how far Ukraine has come since it broke free of the Soviet Union in 1991 but the risk of it backfiring after a deluge of bad publicity is increasing. 

    ProSoccerTalk: Racism, politics at Euro 2012; problems that won't go away

    "Europe 2012 has provided a unique opportunity to present our country to the world and to achieve European standards, not only in organizing the tournament but in the life of our citizens," said Deputy Prime Minister Borys Kolesnikov.

    "If Ukraine does not cope well with the organization of the tournament and show it's a hospitable host, it will reflect on its reputation," said Kolesnikov, who was in charge of preparations for the finals.

    The month-long tournament was starting in Poland on Friday and the final will be held in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, on July 1. 

    Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  • Africa's Rainbow Nation troubled by racist time warp

    Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

    A police officer stops a member of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement outside a court Tuesday from approaching supporters of the two men accused of hacking South African white supremacist leader Eugene Terre'blanche to death.

    By Rohit Kachroo, NBC News

    VENTERSDORP, South Africa -- At first, Ventersdorp seems like a town in a time warp. Not because of the striking, historic church which looms over the town, or the quaint drag of family-run stores, but because of a scene that looks far more sinister.

    Outside the courthouse was a confrontation that might make some people feel that this patch of the Rainbow Nation has been sucked back into the darkness of its racist past.

    On one side of the road, members of the far-right far-right Afrikaner Resistance Movement, known by its Afrikaans initials AWB, are dressed in army uniforms and wave red-and-black flags with symbols that resemble the swastika.

    A few yards from them, a group of about 100 black protesters are screaming slogans, singing anti-apartheid songs and holding home-made placards. One reads “AWB: Animals Without Brains.”

    A farmhand has been found guilty of the murder of South African white supremacist Eugene Terre'blanche. The court said Terreblanche was killed for money, not for his extreme politics. NBC's Rohit Kachroo reports.


    Both groups are here because inside the court Chris Mahlangu, a 29-year old black man, is about to be convicted of the murder of South Africa’s most high-profile white supremacist.

    Eugene Terre'blanche was leader of the AWB during the apartheid years, a group of Afrikaner campaigners that mounted a futile attempt to resist the end of white minority rule.

    Stephane De Sakutin/AFP - Getty Images

    Chris Mahlungu, 29, seen arriving at court Tuesday, was found guilty Tuesday of murdering white supremacist Eugene Terre'blanche.

    Known for his fiery speeches and for leading groups of supporters on horseback, some followers described the charismatic leader as “a cross between Moses and Mussolini.”

    In 1997, he was jailed for the attempted murder of a black security guard and for assaulting a black gas-station worker.

    In 2010, he was found dead. Mahlangu, who worked for Terre'blanche on his farm, was accused of bludgeoning him to death with a steel pipe as he slept.

    Police said that the killing was the climax of dispute over unpaid wages, rather than a racially-motivated attack.

    Mahlangu’s lawyers said that he had been abused by Terre'blanche and acted in self-defense.

    South African farm worker found guilty of white supremacist's murder

    As the conviction was announced, a few skirmishes broke out close to the courthouse.

    AWB members, angry that a second man had been cleared of murder, said that the case highlighted the violence faced by white farmers in South Africa. According to one estimate, 3,000 have been killed since Nelson Mandela’s election in 1994.

    They claimed that it showed that the Afrikaner people were a repressed minority which needed to be handed its own homeland.

    “They are third-world people, we are first-world people” said AWB leader André Visagie.

    “At the one side you have the blacks, at the other side you have the whites, and we will be separated in South Africa until this government recognizes the existence of the Boer people,” he added.

    Real victim in dock
    The black protest group, which included some union representatives, said that the real victim was in the dock.

    They said that Mahlangu had been treated despicably by his employer, claiming that it is a typically South African example of how many black people continue to lose out in the country’s so-called “economic apartheid.”

    From this case, and the response to it, it is possible to draw a positive conclusion.

    At the time of Terre'blanche’s murder, there were fears that the killing of such a divisive figure might ignite racial violence across the country.

    Two years on, the predicted race war has not materialized. South Africa has proved to be much stronger than that.

    But it has, once again, highlighted how inequality and insecurity can continue to divide many people in modern South Africa along racial fault lines.

    Of course, these two groups do not represent all of this country. But there is something in what unites them that is just as telling as what divides them -- frustration with modern South Africa.

    Unlike many AWB members, the vast majority of South Africans believe in the potential of racial harmony.

    But many people of all races are concerned that 18 years after its formation, the Rainbow Nation remains a work in progress.

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  • 3 arrested as Germany cracks down on neo-Nazi extremists

    /

    A helmet with a swastika, a pistol, the replica of a rifle and cartridges which have been seized lie on a table during a press conference of the police in Cologne, Germany, Wednesday.

    By NBC News’ Andy Eckardt and Carlo Angerer

    Three suspected neo-Nazis were arrested in Germany early Wednesday after 100 security officers raided the offices of a right-wing political party and the homes of more than a dozen alleged extremists, police told NBC News.

    The raids in the northwestern cities of Radevormwald, Düsseldorf, Wuppertal and Essen were part of a new investigation focusing on leaders of a far-right group called “Freundeskreis Rade,” police said.

    The three suspects were due to be brought before a judge later on Wednesday. Police and state prosecutors allege they have been linked to "significant crimes."

    The right-wing "Pro NRW" is a local party in the state of North-Rhein Westphalia (NRW).

    Authorities were heavily criticized after failing to connect an underground neo-Nazi terror cell to a 10-year killing spree in which a German police officer, one Greek immigrant and nine Turkish immigrants were murdered.

    A retired teacher's courageous crusade: Tackling neo-Nazi hate

    German police and intelligence officials failed to investigate possible racist motives in the case despite receiving an FBI report in 2007 showing that the 11 victims had been killed because of their ethnicity, Der Spiegel news magazine reported this week.

    Msnbc.com staff contributed to this report.

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  • Anglican official: Front-runner for top church job victim of 'naked racism'

    Andrew Yates / AFP - Getty Images

    Archbishop of York John Sentamu stands next to Britain's Queen Elizabeth II as she leaves the Royal Maundy Service at York Minster in York, northern England, on April 5. During the Royal Maundy Service the queen distributed the Maundy money to 86 women and 86 men -- one for each of the queen's 86 years.

    By msnbc.com and news services

    The church of England's only black bishop, tipped to become the new leader of the 80-million strong worldwide Anglican Communion, is the victim of blatant racism, a former aide told a British newspaper.

    "At its best, the besmirching of (Archbishop of York) John Sentamu has revealed that strand of snobbery which views outsiders as lacking class, diplomacy or civility — in other words 'not one of us,'" Rev Arun Arora told The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.  "At worst, it has elicited the naked racism which still bubbles under the surface in our society, and which is exposed when a black man is in line to break the chains of history."

    Outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, who has agonized about schisms in the Anglican Communion, a federation of 38 national and regional churches, is over women and gay bishops and same-sex unions, announced unexpectedly last month that he would step down at the end of the year.

    He presided over a church split between progressives ready to allow women bishops and bless same-sex unions, and conservatives opposed to such modern reforms.

    Rowan Williams quits: could Anglican church have its first black spiritual leader?

    The resignation of Willliams, a white-bearded and bushy-browed theologian, appeared to spell the end for his faltering project to forge more unity in the federation.

    Arora's charges of an "anonymous whispering" campaign against Uganda-born Archbishop of York John Sentamu came as an anonymous bishop compared Sentamu's temperament to that of an "African chief," according to the Telegraph. 

    Sentamu was born in Uganda and  fled to Britain in 1974 to escape from dictator Idi Amin. 

    A second unnamed bishop told the newspaper:

    "I think Sentamu is clearly going to be a very strong front-runner, although I think there are also the people who are not quite sure that he is suitable in terms of the way he behaves, because he is quite tribal and the African chief thing comes through ... There is something in Sentamu which retains his African views and approach, which can be at one time an asset and another time can be a problem."

    When he announced his decision to step down, Williams said it was time to move on after a decade as archbishop and a his new post as master of Magdelene College at Cambridge University would give him the time "which I have longed for" to think and write about the Church.

    "I would hope that my successor has the constitution of an ox and the skin of a rhinoceros," he said at the time.

    Sentamu has praised Williams as "God's apostle for our time," a courageous and holy man who had been "much maligned by people who should have known better." 

    Elizabeth Hunter, director of the London-based religious think tank Theos, described Sentamu as more conservative than Williams. But she did not see him making a sharp break in the Church or the Communion. 

    "Anyone who gets this post will not take a radical diversion from the path that Archbishop Rowan has been treading simply because there really isn't any other choice," she told Reuters.  

    Other possible contenders to replace Williams reportedly include: Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London who gave the address at the marriage of Prince William and Kate Middleton last year; Bishop of Bradford Nick Baines, known as the ''blogging'' bishop, in recognition of his enthusiasm for new media; and Tim Stevens, the Bishop of Leicester.

    Msnbc.com and Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Swedish minister criticized over 'genital mutilation cake'

    By msnbc.com staff

    Sweden's minister of culture has come under fire for cutting a cake in the shape of a naked black woman in a series of events some deemed a "racist spectacle," Sweden's English-language website The Local reported.

    While attending an art installation in Stockholm on Sunday, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth began cutting the cake as directed, symbolically starting at the clitoris. The cake, intended to highlight the issue of female genital mutilation, was part of the installation, according to the report.

    "In our view, this simply adds to the mockery of racism in Sweden," Kitimbwa Sabuni, spokesperson for the National Afro-Swedish Association told The Local.

    "This was a racist spectacle."

    The organization has demanded Adelsohn Liljeroth's resignation.

    Artist Makode Aj Linde created the installation, and his head, poking through the table, was meant to look as though it was part of the cake. According to the Swedish website, the artist took to his Facebook page to write about his "genital mutilation cake."

    "Before cutting me up she whispered, 'Your life will be better after this' in my ear," the artist wrote in a photo caption for a photo of the partially eaten cake, which was a gory red on the inside.

    Sabuni told The Local that the minister's "participation, as she laughs, drinks and eats cake, merely adds to the insult against people who suffer from racist taunts and against women affected by circumcision."

    According to The Guardian, Adelsohn Liljeroth denied doing anything wrong.

    Graphic warning: This video showing the cake has images some might find disturbing

    Adding that the situation had been misinterpreted, she said she had only been asked to cut the cake and the artist should be blamed for any confusion.

    "He claims that it challenges a romanticized and exoticized view from the West about something that is really about violence and racism," the minister told a news agency, according to The Guardian. "Art needs to be provocative." 

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  • A retired teacher's courageous crusade: Tackling neo-Nazi hate

    Using a scraper, nail-polish remover and a camera, 66-year-old Irmela Mensah-Schramm is tackling neo-Nazi hate in Berlin. The retired special-needs teacher has removed more than 90,000 hateful stickers and graffiti.

    (This report has been updated to correct an error.)

    By Andy Eckardt, NBC News

    BERLIN – Irmela Mensah-Schramm has embarked on her very personal "combat mission" almost daily for 26 years. Her weapons? A scraper, nail-polish remover, a camera and lots of courage.

    Come rain, heatwaves or stormy weather, the 66-year-old sets out to battle what she calls "extremely disturbing" neo-Nazi and racist graffiti, stickers and posters that blight the streets of Germany's capital.

    The retired special-needs teacher has now removed more than 90,000 stickers and scribblings.

    "Even when I injured my leg several years ago and was walking on crutches, it did not stop me from removing the muck off traffic light poles, bus stops or building walls," Mensah-Schramm says.

    Mensah-Schramm travels by commuter train to areas she believes are right-wing strongholds, places where xenophobic propaganda and spray-painted Nazi symbols mix with gang-related graffiti and the more colorful works of spray-paint artists.

    'Appalled'
    Her "vocation" started with a single neo-Nazi sticker on a street light outside of her apartment in the upmarket Berlin-Wannsee area.

    "One morning, I saw a banned Nazi symbol well visible on a lamp post and was appalled that people in my neighborhood ignored it day in and day out, without removing this trash," Mensah-Schramm recalls.

    "Only a short while later, I witnessed an incident in which my Indian brother-in-law became the victim of racist bashing. This shocked me so much that I decided to act."

    John Macdougall / AFP - Getty Images file

    Anti-Nazi activist Irmela Mensah-Schramm scrapes a sticker off a drainpipe in eastern Berlin's Lichtenberg district on December 20.

    She documents much of the offensive material in photographs and has compiled a scrapbook, which she always carries with her. Mensah-Schramm calls her project "Hate Destroys".

    "For many years, I have been displaying my pictures in exhibits across the country," Mensah-Schramm says. "I talk about my experiences in schools and I regularly host workshops with children and students, generating awareness for the bad impact of these ugly racist messages."

    Swastikas
    Even ill health hasn't stopped her determined drive to wipe out extremist propaganda. After undergoing a cancer operation at a Berlin hospital in 1995, Mensah-Schramm found two swastikas painted in a stairwell. She rushed back to the nurses, asked for acetone and scrubbed away as much as she could before becoming too weak to finish the job. It was the first day Mensah-Schramm was able to get out of bed.

    "In some journeys, I need to take tougher measures with black spray-paint or anti-graffiti solvent to remove writings off walls, and sometimes I even ask people on the street to help me out, if I cannot reach the graffiti," Mensah-Schramm says as she walks past run-down apartment buildings in an economically depressed neighborhood in the Berlin suburb of Koenigs Wusterhausen, which was once part of communist East Germany.

    "Look, that is my work," she proudly points out, as she walks past a black square, which was once a swastika that she recently painted over.

    Her message is clear: Don't look away.

    "You cannot achieve something by doing nothing," explains Mensah-Schramm, whose husband was born in Ghana.

    "This type of xenophobic propaganda on the streets can help to spread dangerous ideologies, which can be part of a radicalization process that ultimately can lead to extreme violence," she says, referring to recent revelations about a neo-Nazi terror cell that shocked Germany and led to a nationwide debate about the danger of right-wing extremism in the country.

    Murder spree
    Two men, Uwe Mundlos and Uwe Boehnhardt, and their 36-year old female accomplice, Beate Zschaepe, formed the so-called National Socialist Underground (NSU). The group is believed to be responsible for the murders of at least nine small businessmen of Turkish and Greek origin between 2000 and 2006, as well as the slaying of a police officer in 2007.

    Much to the embarrassment of German authorities, the country's law enforcement agencies only connected the crimes and their xenophobic motives in late 2011 after two of the three cell members committed suicide, following a bank robbery that put police on their trail.

    German investigators originally suspected that the victims were most likely killed by fellow immigrants and might have been involved in gang-related crimes.

    While critics say that German authorities had turned "blind on the right eye", by focusing instead on tackling Islamist terrorism, lawmakers set up an anti-terror center for right-wing extremism in December. Last month, Germany's parliament also appointed a commission of inquiry into the series of killings.

    The German government has also established a database aimed at better coordination in the fight against violent neo-Nazis, partly because the NSU terror cell apparently remained in the shadows for so long due to poor lines of communication between different national security agencies and state authorities.

    "Attacks on local politicians and violent acts against foreigners show that the goal is to spread fear and terror," Heinz Fromm, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, told a recent symposium in Berlin.

    'Brutality'
    Germany's domestic intelligence agency estimates that there are about 9,500 potentially violent neo-Nazis among the 26,000 right-wing extremists in the country.

    "For years, we have been seeing that brutality within right-wing extremism has been on the rise," says Dr. Alexander Eisvogel, vice-president of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

    However, Mensah-Schramm insists that she remains unafraid.

    "I have been threatened many times by neo-Nazis, who have seen me remove their works,” she says. “And once, I came across big letters written on a wall that read: 'Schramm, we will get you'.

    "Another time, I found my photo illegally posted on a well-known neo-Nazi website, where the subtitle indicated that nobody would care if I was dead," Mensah-Schramm describes.

    She filed an official complaint over the violation of her personal rights. "Unfortunately, that got me nowhere because the server for the page was based in the United States," Mensah-Schramm says.

    Andy Eckardt, NBC News

    This neo-Nazi sticker that reads "nationalism" in German is among the thousands that have been removed by Irmela Mensah-Schramm.

    In fact, German authorities are facing a growing challenge when it comes to online enforcement.

    Extremist groups are turning to web servers in the United States to host their content and spread their messages beyond the jurisdiction of local authorities. While displaying of Nazi symbols and the incitement of racial hatred are outlawed in Germany, neo-Nazi websites take advantage of free speech laws in the United States.

    As the retiree counts sticker number 70,076, removed at a bus stop outside a local high school, she turns and says, "There are these small, but very rewarding moments."

    "A former neo-Nazi, who had massively threatened me in the past and later exited the scene, stopped me on the street one day," Mensah-Schramm says with a choked voice. "He took off his sunglasses, looked me straight in the eyes and said that he wanted to thank me for never giving up my fight.

    "I was so overwhelmed by the gesture that I started to cry," Mensah-Schramm says, before walking off to complete her mission of the day.

  • 18 years after racist slaying, fear still stalks London's streets

    Carl Court / AFP - Getty Images

    Flowers were left at the Stephen Lawrence memorial in the Eltham area of south London on Wednesday.

    By Jason Jouavel, NBC News

    LONDON -- A plaque near a bus stop in south London marks where murdered black teenager Stephen Lawrence took his last few breaths and serves as a grim reminder of one of Britain's most notorious racist crimes. 

    The memorial at the site of Lawrence's killing -- which has been described as the U.K's "Rosa Parks moment" -- has been vandalized several times. That strikes me as a sign that deep hatred still exists.

    I'm a black south Londoner. And almost two decades after the slaying, I still feel very anxious walking through certain streets in Eltham after dark.

    Lawrence, 18, was stabbed to death by a gang of white youths in an unprovoked attack as he waited at the bus stop in Eltham in 1993. The investigation was bungled and despite multiple court appearances by suspects over the years no one was convicted until Tuesday.

    Two men have been convicted of the 1993 killing of a black teenager that prompted a change in the law and reforms to Britain's police. ITV News' Simon Israel reports.

    At least three people involved in Lawrence's slaying remain at large and to this day a notable lack of local people have come forward with information about what happened.

    Duwayne Brooks, who was with Lawrence at the time of the attack, told investigators that they had been racially abused before the stabbing. However, police initially treated Brooks like a suspect -- as opposed to a key witness.

    The crime also resulted in a 1999 public inquiry that branded London's Metropolitan Police force as "institutionally racist."

    Paul Hackett / Reuters, file

    David Norris (rear with blue shirt) runs for cover as he and some of the others suspected of involvement in the killing of Stephen Lawrence are pelted with eggs after leaving a 1999 public Inquiry into police handling of the case in London.

     Stephen's parents, Doreen and Neville Lawrence, have waged a nearly 19-year battle for justice, which finally paid dividends with this week's murder convictions of Gary Dobson and David Norris.

    I've seen the slain teenager's courageous mother several times on the streets of south London as she continues her fight to clean-up the police, strengthen laws and support victims of racially motivated crimes. My immediate impulse is always to just salute her.

    'Deep darkness'
    Although there was celebration in some quarters over the conviction and sentencing of Dobson and Norris, I have to agree with the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He summed up this week's events as "little light with deep darkness."

    It's important to remember that the people who killed Lawrence have been harbored by their community for years and some are still being protected.

    Some progress has undoubtedly been made since Lawrence's slaying.

    Reuters

    Stephen Lawrence was aged 18 when he was stabbed to death near a bus stop in Eltham, south London, in 1993.

    However, recruitment drives aimed at attracting more black and Asian officers have failed to make the Metropolitan Police representative of London's ethnic diversity.

    A disproportionate number of black people are still stopped and searched by the police. It's something I've been through several times. On one occasion, I was driving to work when I was stopped. The police officer said that I looked "suspicious."

    Many young black men in London complain about being prejudged and stereotyped. 

    I was astonished when a well-educated acquaintance told me she thought that black people should be stopped because they commit most crimes as we casually discussed last summer's London riots. I wonder whether this is also the view of some police officers.

    The police must be commended for pursuing Lawrence's killers for close to two decades. But let's not forget that if the investigating officers had been more rigorous when the crime was committed, the Lawrence family may have had justice much sooner.

  • Racist killers sentenced in UK's 'Rosa Parks moment'

    By msnbc.com staff and news services

    LONDON - A judge in Britain has sentenced two men to minimum prison terms of 14 years and 3 months and 15 years and 2 months for stabbing a black teenager to death almost two decades ago.

    The murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence shocked the country and came to be seen as a festering racial injustice, attracting the attention of civil rights leaders in the U.S., such as Jesse Jackson and msnbc host Al Sharpton.

    Two men have been convicted of killing a black teenager in a case that shook Britain's police and law courts. ITN's Simon Israel reports for Channel 4 news.

    It was almost 19 years before anyone was convicted and three other suspects remain at large, to the frustration of prosecutors.

    The investigation — which has seen multiple court appearances by all five suspects over the years — led to strong criticism of London's Metropolitan Police and resulted in an investigation that found the force was "institutionally racist" and had bungled evidence-gathering.

    It also led to a change in Britain's double jeopardy rules, permitting a second prosecution if compelling new evidence emerges.

    Gary Dobson and David Norris were convicted Tuesday. On Wednesday, Dobson received the 15 years and 2 months sentence. Norris was jailed for 14 years and 3 months.

    Judge Colman Treacy said the murder, by a gang of five people, was an evil crime motivated by racial hatred.

    Crown Prosecution Service / Reuters

    Gary Dobson (left) and David Norris, pictured in two undated photos released by Britain's Crown Prosecution Service, were found guilty of murdering black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

    Because Dobson and Norris were teenagers at the time, their minimum sentences were shorter than if they had been adults.

    The judge said Lawrence's death was a "murder that scarred the nation," according to BBC News.

    "I'm sure that you knew one of your group was armed with a knife that night," the judge told Dobson and Norris. He said it was "a brief but coordinated attack, a racist taunt, a charge and a swallowing up of Stephen Lawrence."

    "The evidence does not prove you had the knife, but the holder had it with your approval," he said. "It does not matter the knife was not in your hands. You -- Dobson -- repeatedly lied as part of group loyalty."

    An inquiry into Lawrence's death found the investigation by London's Metropolitan Police had been hampered by its "institutionally racist" nature.

    Matthew Ryder, a lawyer who represented the Lawrence family in a civil lawsuit against the police, told BBC News that the case was a "Rosa Parks moment" for the U.K.

    Lawrence family via PA / AP, fil

    An undated family handout photo of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.

    "It was a moment when you saw the victims of injustice fighting for justice and the system letting them down and I think for that reason it profoundly changed how we view race and racism within this society," Ryder added.

    "On the face of it, it was a crude, violent form of racism, which every reasonable person would condemn, but what followed on from that, what's always been part of the Lawrence case, was the pernicious, systemic forms of racism which caused the investigation to fail," he said, according to the BBC.

    Speaking after the two men were convicted, but before the sentencing hearing, Jackson said that black people in the U.K. were treated as "second class citizens -- free but not equal, not adequately protected by law," according to a report by the Daily Telegraph.

    Jackson said local people in the community of Eltham, London, where the killing took place, had "incubated" the murderers.

    "All these years many people knew who they were and they would end up being convicted on the strength of a drop of blood or a strand of hair," Jackson said, according to the Telegraph's report.

    "It was much more obvious down through the years who was involved in this killing," he added.

    The Associated Press and msnbc.com editor Ian Johnston contributed to this report.