Nazis active in playground — report

Press, 12 May 1981, Page 9

Nazis active in playground — report

NZPA-Reuter London An independent research group said yesterday that Britain’s education authorities were dangerously unaware of activities by racist neo-Nazi groups in recruiting growing numbers of school children. A report, ‘’Nazis in the playground," by the Centre for Contemporary Studies, said the extreme Right, including overtly racist groups like the National Front and the British Movement, was recruiting hard among the young. Quoting from Rightist literature which it said was designed to provoke hostility towards black people, it said: “The message of the National Front and others is

entirely negative, hateful and brutal.

“But it ■ finds a response among young people in the inner cities who see themselves graduating from school at the earliest opportunity into indefinite unemployment, without prospects or compensation." The report said that despite a disquieting upsurge in neo-Nazi activity this year there had been little committed opposition from political parties, trades unions and educational authorities. It called on the Govern-ment-funded Commission for Racial Equality, teachers’ trades union and other educational bodies to confront racism in schools directly and give individual teachers more -support. __

It also called for official monitoring of the extreme Right's, activities in schools and said existing legislation on incitement to racial hatred should be strengthened.

Recent incidents quoted in the report included the daubing of swastikas on a school in Manchester, physical attacks on black pupils and a Jewish boy in London, and the firebombing in Birmingham of an empty classroom used by mainly Asian schoolchildren.

In February the Home Office announced an inquiry into extremist and racist organisations in Britain after reports of increasing attacks on non-whites and religious minorities.