The principle of “free speech” allows the German neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD) to give out CDs to school children, according to the German government’s Department for Harmful Media to Young Persons.

The agency’s director said, "Political content alone is not enough to warrant a ban” and added that there must be a balance between protecting youth and protecting free speech. The decision allows the party to distribute the CDs outside schools. The discs include interviews and music by party members but do not include a direct call for violence.

The NPD is <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Germany’s most extreme far-right party and has an anti-immigrant agenda. One of its senior members, who has served two jail terms for inciting racial hatred and distributing Nazi propaganda, celebrated the decision on the party’s website.

The party now can "continue to try to transmit its ideas to young people, schoolchildren and first-time voters," another NPD member said in response to the decision, which rejected an appeal to ban the disc near schools because of its Nazi ideology.

"We find it strange that the CD has not been classified as dangerous to youth," said an official of the Lower Saxony province that had asked for the ban.