German President Horst Koehler signed into law on Thursday a bill to ban demonstrations by neo-Nazis at important memorial sites.

Bundestag and Bundesrat, the two chambers of the German parliament, have both passed the legislation after the ultra-right party NPD announced that it intended to hold a neo-Nazi-styled parade through the downtown Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on May 8.

Under the new law, demonstrations at memorial places of "outstanding, trans-regional significance" will be banned, if victims of Nazi crimes feel hurt.

Persons who violate the new assembling law can face up to three years in prison or a certain amount of fines.

(Xinhua News Agency March 25, 2005)