Mob rampages through east German town fair

BERLIN, Aug 26 (Reuters) A mob smashed stalls and clashed with police at a town fair in eastern Germany, police said today, less than a week after eight Indians were attacked at another local festival.

Food and drink stalls were damaged, parasols set ablaze and police pelted with bottles as around 40 people went on the rampage in the small northeastern town of Buetzow in the early hours yesterday, police in the nearby port of Rostock said.

Separately, authorities said a 36-year-old Iraqi man was the victim of a racially-motivated attack in the eastern city of Magdeburg, also in the early hours yesterday.

Magdeburg police said an unidentified man beat the Iraqi with a baseball bat and set a dog on him before fleeing.

Last weekend a group of about 50 chased eight Indian men through the eastern town of Muegeln during a local fair.

That incident prompted a wave of soul-searching in Germany about right-wing violence.

A police spokesman said there was currently no evidence that far-right supporters were involved in Buetzow, but the Schweriner Volkszeitung paper on Sunday quoted an unnamed police official as saying that local far-right supporters were among the trouble-makers.

''It was like a war,'' an unnamed resident told the paper.

The spokesman said police had ruled out nothing in their inquiries, and added that such incidents were not usual for the annual town fair.

One of the food stalls attacked by the mob in Buetzow belonged to a Pakistani man, the spokesman said.

Police have made no arrests so far in Buetzow, but officers took the details of 15 mostly younger people present. Around 30 officers were deployed to restore order. There were no reports of any injuries to people, the spokesman said.

The far-right National Democratic Party (NPD) is represented in the regional parliaments of both eastern states where Muegeln and Buetzow are situated. The Muegeln attacks have sparked renewed demands for a fresh attempt to ban the NPD.

A previous effort to ban the party failed in 2003.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday she was sceptical about pursuing a ban, stressing she did not want a repeat of the 2003 outcome. The European Union's Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini said in a newspaper interview he would back an NPD ban.

REUTERS MS LS RAI2254