Struggle
31-05-2007 / Britain
US- Foundation boycott British VCV boycott on Israeli academia.
An American research foundation announced on Thursday that following the decision of the British University and College Union (UCU) to consider launching an academic boycott of Israel it has cancelled its plans to open a grant application process for UK research. The $150 million Goldhirsh foundation supports scientists around the world in the quest for a cure for brain cancer funds research. In a letter to British academic institutions, foundation leader Elizabeth Goldhirsh writes: "As a director of a $150 million foundation that supports scientists around the world in the quest for a cure for brain cancer, I am profoundly disappointed in your union's decision to boycott Israel today."This action represents a severe setback for academic freedom and open discourse. Moreover, the decision to single out and demonize Israel above and beyond all other countries - remaining silent over Russia's brutal occupation in Chechnya, for example, or China's ongoing oppression of Tibet - is, at best, troubling. At worst, it points to a far more sinister and tragic motivation. "Equally disturbing is to do so at a time when Israel's civilians are facing near-daily missile attacks from Gaza and her partner for negotiations is an organization that dispatches suicide bombers and refuses to recognize the Jewish State's right to exist." Given this decision, I am deeply saddened to say that while my foundation had been considering opening up our scientific grant process to British researchers we will no longer be able to do so. I urge you to work against this boycott and restore learning's highest ideal of fairness free of prejudice to British academia.
Source: ynetnews
Date: 31/05/07
Posted: 04/06/07
31-05-2007 / Ukraine
Ukraine- Arrest of suspect of cemetery desecration
Police in Chernigov, Ukraine have detained a suspect in the May 23 vandalization of a Jewish cemetery there. The suspect is a 14-year-old youth who faces charges of "mockery of a grave." Nineteen gravestones were damaged in the incident.
Date: 31/05/07
Posted: 06/06/07
31-05-2007 / Ukraine
Ukraine– A MAUP Kiosk Closed Down
On 31st May 2007, a kiosk belonging to MAUP disseminating antisemitic material was torn down. It had been set up about a month earlier. The police was present during the dismantling having arrived together with the workers.
Date: May 31, 2007
28-05-2007 / Argentina
Argentina– Denunciation of the Antisemitic Inciedent at a High School in Tucumán
On 28th May 2007, the umbrella organization of the Jewish community in Argentina, DAIA, sharply denounced the antisemitic incident at the Colegio Nacional High School in Tucumán where swastikas were discovered in the Headmaster's office. The DAIA was joined in this denunciation by the National Institute for the Prevention of Discrimination, Xenophbia and Racism.
Date: May 28, 2007
Posted: May 31, 2007
28-05-2007 / Latvia
Latvia- Anti-Semitic publisher found not guilty
The publisher of an anti-Semitic and anti-Russian newspaper was found not guilty of inter-ethnic incitement by a court in Riga, Latvia. Aivars Garda, publisher of the newspaper "DDD", and two of these employees, faced fines if they had been found guilty in the two year old case. The paper has published articles referring to Jews as “kikes” and containing numerous derogatory statements about Russians living in Latvia. Past attempts to sanction the paper and its publisher under the country’s anti-incitementucsjucsjucs statutes have failed. Latvian courts have successfully applied anti-incitement laws only in two cases in which the accused were perpetrators of violence who happened to use racist language during an assault attack. No publisher of anti-Semitic or racist propaganda has been successfully prosecuted under these laws, which the prosecutors in the Garda case admitted were difficult to apply.
Date: 28/05/07
Posted: 06/06/07
25-05-2007 / France
France - Man gets 20 years jail for racist 'crusade' in France
A French court sentenced a man who tried to kill two Arab men with an axe and desecrated a Jewish cemetery during a 2004 racist "crusade" to 20 years behind bars.
In his August 2004 rampage in the eastern French town of Lyon, 27-year-old Mickael Tronchon, known as "Phineas" after a US neo-Nazi group, had attempted to kill a Frenchman of Algerian origin in his 30s and a Moroccan in his 70s.
In August 2004 he desecrated the Jewish cemetary of La Mouche in Lyon where he sketched swastikas and wrote the name "Adolph Hitler" on 62 tombstones.
Source: www.ejpress.org
Date: May 25, 2007
Posted: May 27, 2007
25-05-2007 / United States
USA - Officer Disciplined for Anti-Semitism
A Navy officer, Lt. Cmdr. John F. Sharpe, accused of involvement with anti-Semitic groups has been disciplined and faces reassignment when he returns to duty.
Earlier this year, Sharpe was accused of stating anti-Semitic and supremacist views in an article on Catholic extremists published by the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center.
Sharpe, a Naval Academy graduate, was also co-editor of two books that were critical of the United States' invasion of Iraq. The books called the war "immoral and illegal" and suggested President Bush broke international law.
Source: www.military.com
Date: May 25, 2007
Posted: May 27, 2007
25-05-2007 / Britain
Britain - Nobel laureate stands up to boycott call
Boycotting Israel indicates a moral blindness for which it is hard to find any explanation other than anti-Semitism, Nobel laureate Prof. Steven Weinberg wrote in a letter explaining his reason for withdrawing from a July physics conference at London's Imperial College, the Guardian reported.
Weinberg said he perceived "a widespread anti-Israel and anti-Semitic current in British opinion."
Weinberg's announcement, which he said was triggered by a call from the National Union of Journalists to boycott Israeli products, comes a few days ahead of a planned vote on two separate motions for academic boycott by the University and College Union, the largest professional association for lecturers and researchers in British higher education.
This was not the first time Weinberg has taken a strong stance against moves to boycott Israel. In 2005, the UK Association of University Teachers and Natfhe, two British lecturers' unions, passed a boycott motion, prompting Weinberg to cancel his participation in a conference at the University of Durham.
The 2005 motion was later reversed following a storm of international protest.
Last week, a delegation of senior Israeli academics concluded meetings with their British counterparts and with parliamentarians and journalists in an effort to persuade academics and members of the UCU to reject the boycott proposal.
The Israelis' trip was organized by the Fair Play Campaign Group (FPCG,) part of the Board of Deputies of British Jews' campaign to combat initiatives to boycott Israel, together with the International Advisory Board for Academic Freedom (IAB,) set up by Bar-Ilan University in 2005 to respond to calls for boycotts of Israeli academics.
Source: www.jpost.com
Date: May. 25, 2007
Posted: May, 27, 2007
Pic: Texas University
25-05-2007 / Argentina
Argentina– The Jewish Community and the Authorities Denounce the Publicatiion of Antisemitic Graffiti Against the Mayor of Bueno
On 25th May 2007, the Jewish umbrella organization in Argentina (DAIA) and the authorities of the Buenos Aires Municipality
denounced the publication of the antisemitic graffiti on posters all over Buenos Aires
which showed the picture of the Mayor of Buenos Aires, Jorge Telerman. The Chair of DAIA, Aldo Dunzis, said: "All of society and the political parties must denounce this act. Silence does not help".
Date: May 25, 2007
Posted: 5 June 2007
25-05-2007 / Russia
Russia– Warning by the Authorities against Antisemitic Publications
On 25th May 2007, the Russian Federal Service for Monitoring the Observance of the Law in the Mass Media issued letters of warning to the Duel newspaper and against the Russkaia Pravda Publishing Company for their continued publication of nationalist and antisemitic material.
Date: May 25, 2007
24-05-2007 / Britain
Britain- Anti-Semitic Muslim preacher Deported
Abdullah al-Faisal, who vocally advocated the killing of Jews as well as other non-Muslims, was sent back to his native Jamaica after serving four years of a seven year jail sentence.
The 43-year-old previously served as the Imam at the Brixton Mosque in south London. But his extremist preaching caught the attention of the British authorities in 2003.
In April of that year he became the first Islamic preacher to be convicted of soliciting murder and inciting racial hatred in Britain.
The court had heard how al-Faisel, who converted to Islam some years earlier, had distributed tapes of his sermons with titles such as No Peace with the Jews in a number of London’s radical Islamic book shops.
The former Imam, who was previously known as William Forest is also believed to have influenced 19-year-old suicide bomber Germaine Lindsey who blew himself up on a London Underground tube train on July 7, 2005 killing 26 people.
Al-Faisal, who was raised as a Christian and moved to England 20 years ago, flew to Jamaica’s capital city Kingston from Gatwick Airport in England on May 24, along with two police officers and an immigration officer.
Date: 24/05/07
Posted: 06/06/07
23-05-2007 / United States
USA - Anti-Semitic graffiti covered over
In April graffiti was scrawled on several rocks in white spray paint in a bike path near the public library in Marblehead. The area was littered with beer cans and other debris. The graffiti consisted of a large swastika and the words “Hitler” and “Jews Burn.” Members of the Task Force Against Discrimination and the ADL, accompanied by the area’s Police Chief, marched to the scene armed with cans of blue spray paint and rendered the graffiti illegible but left a reminder that an act of hatred had occurred.
20-year-old Daniel Dyer of Marblehead along with two juveniles were found responsible for the graffiti, with Dyer sentenced to time in jail for two counts of damage for the purpose of intimidation. One of the juveniles, a 16-year-old at the time of the crime, was sentenced to perform community service, enrolled in a Holocaust awareness program and paid $667 in restitution.
Source: www.townonline.com
Date: May 23, 2007
Posted: May 24, 2007
By Kaitlin Melanson
22-05-2007 / Russia
Russia- Arrest of neo- Nazis chelyabinsk
Police in Chelyabinsk, Russia detained four neo-Nazis in connection with a February 2004 arson attack against a synagogue, The suspects are men in their early twenties--two are college students. Two years ago they formed a neo-Nazi group called the Vikings. On February 5, 2004 they threw several Molotov cocktails at a wooden synagogue building.
Date: 22/05/07
Posted: 06/06/07
20-05-2007 / Poland
Poland - David Irving banned from Warsaw Books Fair
Self-taught British historian David Irving, was ordered out of International Warsaw Book Fair where he was attempting to display his books – the fairs' organizers informed.
Irving is a convicted Holocaust denier – he spent more than a year in an Austrian jail for denying the Nazis organized mass murder of six million Jews during World War Two.
The organizers received detailed materials on his work from Irving's publishers only a few hours before the deadline and hence did not have enough time to prevent the historian from setting up a table at the exhibition. Polish law does not forbid Holocaust denial but prohibits the promotion of fascism and defamation of people on racial and religious grounds.
Source: www.poland.pl
Date: May 20, 2007
Posted: May 21, 2007
18-05-2007 / Italy
Italy - Italian college shuns Holocaust denier
An Italian university closed one of its campuses for the day Friday to prevent a planned lecture by a retired French professor who denies gas chambers were used in Nazi concentration camps.
Robert Faurisson, who has been convicted five times in France for denying crimes against humanity, is expected to speak at a local hotel instead.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center had urged the university to cancel the event.
"To welcome Faurisson is an embarrassment to Italian academia, offends the families of Italian martyrs who fell in fighting the scourge of fascism ... and encourages a perverse propaganda to incite a new generation to anti-Semitism and racist doctrine," the center said in a statement.
Source:
www.jpost.com
Date: May 18, 2007
Posted: May 20, 2007
17-05-2007 / Russia
Russia– The Arrest of a Journalist for Disseminating Antisemitic Propaganda
On 17th May 2007, a member of the editorial staff of the nationalistic Russian newspaper Pravoslav Russia was arrested by the police for disseminating antisemitic propaganda by means of that newspaper.
Date: May 17, 2007
17-05-2007 / Russia
Russia– Draft Law on Increasing the Punishment for Desecrating Burial Sites
On 17th May 2007, the Lower House of the Russian Parliament passed, on first reading, a draft law designed to increase from three years to five years imprisonment for the desecration of burial sites on political, religious or nationalistic grounds from three to five years imprisonment.
Date: May 17, 2007
16-05-2007 / Belgium
Europe – German Chancellor Merkel – "The Union is Always Prepared to Combat Antisemitism
On 16th May 2007, a discussion was held at the European Union House in Brussels with the participation of senior EU representatives including German Chancellor and Current President of the Union Angela Merkel, the President of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering and the President of the European Union. Also participating were representatives of the monotheistic religions, including senior Vatican representatives as well those of Sunni and Shiite Islam. The Jewish communities were represented by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi if Britain, who is also Associate President of the Conference and members of the Standing Committee: Rabbi David Liberman, the Chief Rabbi of Antwerp and Rabbi Avraham Guttman, the Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg.
Each year, the European Union gathers together the senior representatives of the monotheistic religions at EU offices to discuss important issues at senior level. Those invited to this meeting included the senior Vatican representative on relations with the Jews, Walter Cardinal Kasper, and other European cardinals and representatives of Protestant and Orthodox Churches as well as senior representatives of Sunni and Shiite Islam.
Rabbi Sacks said during the discussion that European Jewish communities were seriously concerned over the increase in antisemtic incidents in Europe and demanded that the leaders of the EU take strong measures against the phenomenon. Rabbi Liberman said that it is very important to teach the European youth about the customs of the various religions in their countries, as well as about their life-styles and their history so that they can know that the presence of Jews in Europe is a natural phenomenon. In response to the rabbis' words German Chancellor and current President of the European Union Council, Angela Merkel, said that the Union was always ready to combat antisemitism because: "New laws [enacted] in the EU require that the member States increase their battle against incidents of racism and especially antisemitism".
Source:
http://www.inn.co.il/
Date: 16th May 2007
Posted: 17 May 2007
16-05-2007 / Ukraine
Ukraine - Police dispersed sellers of antisemitic literature
Following complaints by a member of the national parliament (Vladimir Marushchenko), police in Kiev dispersed sellers of antisemitic and neo-Nazi literature on the Maidan, Kiev's main square.Officers justified the action by citing a technicality in the law rather than Ukraine’s criminal prohibition on the public incitement of ethnic hatred.
Source: www.fsumonitor.com
Date: May 16, 2007
15-05-2007 / United States
USA - Wilton responds to anti-Semitic crimes with press conference and reward
“Solidarity” was the word echoing through the crowd that stood in front of the Wilton town hall this morning, as clergy, law enforcement, town officials, community members and media gathered for a press conference on
recent anti-Semitic bias crimes in town.
Nearly 60 people stood outside to talk about bias crimes that have happened in Wilton since April 5. Wilton police have reported five incidents around town where swastikas and profanities were painted on people’s homes and left on their front lawns.
“Hate crimes often have a particularly acute emotional impact on victims and on their communities,” said David Warren, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League of Connecticut. “Hate crimes cause insecurity among members of the targeted group, making them feel like outsiders in their own community.”
A $2,500 reward was offered by the United Jewish Federation of Westport, Weston, Wilton and Norwalk for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the graffiti.
Source:
www.acorn-online.com
Date: May 15, 2007
Posted: May 16, 2007
By Robin Walluck
