BERLIN, Oct. 7 (Xinhua) -- A right-wing rock concert in German state of Thuringia has been canceled because of violent riots against police officers. According to police, right-wing extremists threw stones and bottles at the officers, slightly injuring eight policemen, the German Press Agency (DPA) reported on Sunday.

At the concert on Saturday evening about 800 right-wing supporters, instead of thousands of participants as previously expected, attended the concert. Following the riots, police used pepper spray to disperse the concert goers and vacate the square.

As local media reported, the concert was labelled by its organizer as a "rock against foreign inundation" and initially planned to be held in Magdala, a small eastern town near Weimar and Jena.

The district court of Weimar had forbidden the organizers there to use an access road to the event site, and the concert was relocated to Apolda.

Local media reported, in the first half of 2018, 131 neo-Nazi music events drew 13,000 visitors across Germany, according to a government tally provided last month at the request of the Left Party in Germany's federal parliament.