Struggle
23-03-2008 / France
France – deputy governor fired after publishing an anti Israel article
“Even if he intended to publish an article on the Ming vases, he should have notified us, this is the only norm we operate upon”. In a press conference held on Sunday, March 23 at La Rochelle, the governor of Charente-Maritime, Jacques Reiller, explained why his colleague, Bruno Guigue, the deputy governor of Saintes, was fired from duty claiming that the man breached his commitment to moderation.
We heard of Mr. Guigue firing on Saturday, following a violent anti Israel article published on the oumma.com website. In this text published on March 13 under the heading “When the Israeli lobby rises against the U.N.”, Mr. Guigue explicitly indicates that, “Israel is the only country in the world where snipers shoot young girls leaving their school”. He also jokes about the fact that “in prisons, due to religious customs, torture is terminated during the Sabbath”.
“He will return to serve as a civilian administrator. Mr. Guigue himself resigned from duty” emphasized the governor in his statement to the press. The Minister of Interior, Michèle Alliot-Marie who was updated about the article on Wednesday, decided to immediate end Mr. Guigue’s service, as announced on Saturday by the Ministry of Interior.
On Sunday, the oumma.com website claimed, “The punishment he received serves as proof that it is not possible to utter fair criticism in France”. Bruno Guigue, a graduate of the administrative school, the École Normale Supérieure, published several articles on the Middle East: a war of words and articles on the Middle East.
The civilian administrator who in the past fall was borrowed for the deputy governor post, “is returning to his original place”, explained the Charente-Maritime governor. He “returns to serve as a civilian administrator” serving under a different public body.
Date: March 23, 2008
Source: Lemonde.fr
20-03-2008 / Germany
Germany - Jewish group seeks to purge YouTube of anti-Semitic videos
Germany's national Jewish body said Thursday it has filed suit against YouTube and its parent company Google, demanding a court order for the site to be permanently purged of anti-Semitic videos.
Stephan Kramer, secretary general of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said in Hamburg, "we charge Google with aiding and abetting racial hatred and discrimination on its YouTube video- platform subsidiary”.
He said one example was a video clip that showed a late president of the Central Council, Paul Spiegel, being burned alive. He charged that it had been available for download for months on end.
Source:
www.haaretz.com
Date: March 20, 2008
17-03-2008 / United States
USA - NJ Youths Sentenced in Cemetery Desecration
After toppling 499 headstones in January, four teenagers were sentenced in Middlesex County, NJ.
The judge gave the teens, ages 15-17, 18 months probation, plus paying some of the damages, writing letters of apology, serving 100 hours of "community service keeping community cemeteries clean" and attending "a 12-week course studying the Holocaust."
Source:
http://gothamist.com
Date: March 17, 2008
17-03-2008 / Canada
Canada - Police launch anti-hate crime DVD
The Hamilton provincial government has unveiled a new DVD to fight hate crime.
It will be shown to schools, youth groups and community organizations as a means of educating people about what hates crimes are.
Ontario’s Minister of Community Safety Rick Bartolucci says another goal is to encourage victims to report them. He notes that 9-of-10 hate crimes currently go unreported in Canada.
Source: www.900chml.com
Date: Mar, 17 2008
By Ken Mann
13-03-2008 / Australia
Australia - Police target Jewish attacks
Victoria Police plans to set up a squad to deal specifically with anti-Semitic attacks and other crimes directed at the Jewish community.
Assistant Commissioner Gary Jamieson said that the squad would become an extension of an existing intelligence unit.
"We have offered to set up a co-coordinating desk to monitor issues in regards to the Jewish community and have a single centre and point of contact for that," he said.
The move comes after intense lobbying by Jewish figures.
Source:
www.theaustralian.news.com.au
By Richard Kerbaj |
10-03-2008 / Ukraine
Ukraine - Rabbi Dov-Ber Baitman attackers identified
A special unit of the Secret Service and Ministry of Interior Affairs named the assailants who severely beat Rabbi Dov-Ber Baitman, a teacher at the Jewish educational center Shiurey Torah and the anchor of the local Jewish television show “Video-HiTaS,” on Jan. 27.
Source:
http://www.jta.org/
Date: March 10, 2008
05-03-2008 / Russia
Russia - Antisemite Gets Four Years for Attacking Rabbi in Ivanovo
A young man was sentenced to four years in prison after a court in Ivanovo, Russia found him guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and simple assault.
Sergey Novikov and his brother attacked the city's chief rabbi and a member of the community as they were showing around some Jewish guests from Canada on June 2007. He broke a bottle over Rabbi Ervin Kirshteyn's head and assaulted Valery Makushev while screaming antisemitic abuse and death threats.
Source:
www.fsumonitor.com
Date: March 5, 2008
01-03-2008 / France
France - Holocaust denier verdict approved
The Lyons Appeal Court has confirmed conviction of a member of the European Parliament, Bruno Gollnisch, for questioning the Holocaust.
Gollnisch, a former law professor of Lyons University and a member of the European Parliament has been sentenced to five months suspended jail term and a cash fine of 5,000 euros.
Gollnisch has questioned the gas-chambers run by Nazi Germany, where thousands of Jews were allegedly murdered.
Source: www.presstv.ir
Date: March 1, 2008
29-02-2008 / United States
USA - Teen Arrested For Racist, Anti-Semitic Vandalism
Fort Thomas Police (Kentucky) have arrested a juvenile for spray painting racist and anti-semitic messages.
Fort Thomas Police say the graffiti started last summer with the initials “e-j” or “l-j” painted near Highland Park, Then a house, a car, and a wall.
Police say the 15-year-old is from that neighborhood.
Source: www.local12.com
Date: Feb 29, 2008
28-02-2008 / United States
USA - Four Suspects Arrested In Hate Crime Beating On Temple Campus
Three of four suspects have been arrested and charged in a brutal hate crime on Temple University’s campus which left a Jewish man with a broken nose and fractured eye socket.
Police arrested and charged four temple students, Michael Walsh, David Scott, his brother Steven Scott and Bryan Pediero.
The four suspects have already been suspended from Temple and face a disciplinary hearing and expulsion. Police have charged them with simple assault, aggravated assault and committing a hate crime.
Source:
http://www.myfoxphilly.com/
Date: Feb 28, 2008
By Julie Kim
26-02-2008 / United States
USA - Yale launches international anti-Semitism network
Yale University in the United States has launched an international association to link researchers on anti-Semitism.
The ‘International Association for the Study of Anti-Semitism’, to be headquartered at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut, is a product of the Yale Initiative on the Study of Anti-Semitism. The launch was announced at the Global Forum on Anti-Semitism held this week in Jerusalem.
Charles Small, the director of the Yale initiative, told the assembly that the new association wanted to bring together scholars from institutes around the world to ease the exchange of information and promote research. Small said he hoped the association would help "organize and harness the expertise on this subject matter," especially "during these times when some national leaders and social movements call openly for the destruction of Israel and its people in the most heinous manner, while other leaders and scholars in other parts of the world do not want to fathom this rapidly changing reality."
Membership is open to scholars and professionals in the field, research institutions, universities and their departments, and associations with active scholars exploring related fields.
Date: February 26, 2008
26-02-2008 / United States
USA - police investigate swastikas at Goutier College
Police are investigating an incident involving swastikas scratched in the wall outside a Goucher College student's apartment.
Goucher College in Towson, Maryland has a significant number of Jewish students who are troubled by the vandalism.
"Many students had grandparents or great-grandparents who were victims of the Holocaust. So to put a swastika on a door or symbol of anti-Semitism of hate...it scares people," said Alison Wielechowski with Goucher Hillel.
Police say the student who has confessed to the incident says it was just a prank. He says he and another student were drinking heavily at a party.
Source:
http://wjz.com
Date: Feb 26, 2008
25-02-2008 / Russia
Russia - Russian neo-Nazis charged in vandalism
Nineteen members of a Russian neo-Nazi group were charged with vandalizing Jewish and Muslim cemeteries.
Prosecutors in Tver, a city of more than 400,000 about 140 miles from Moscow, also charged members of the group Russian National Unity with murder motivated by ethnic hatred and assault.
On Aug. 5, 2005, the suspects allegedly desecrated approximately 50 Jewish gravestones at the Dmitrovo-Cherkassy cemetery, and in October 2006 they allegedly damaged and painted swastikas on some 200 Jewish and Muslim gravestones at the Pervomayskoe and Dmitrovo-Cherkassy cemeteries.
The suspects left leaflets calling for the murder of non-Russians.
Source:
www.jta.org
Date: Feb 25, 2008
25-02-2008 / Israel
Israel.International coalition against anti-Semitism to be organized soon.
At the end of the global Forum against anti-Semitism Conference, that was held yesterday and today at Israel Foreign Office, the Canadian M.P, former minister of Justice Irvin Cotler and John Mann, the British M.P., announced their intention to organize an international coalition to fight anti-Semitism. This decision is being supported by the Conference leaders: deputy to Prime minister and minister of Foreign Affairs, Tsipi Livni, and Ytzhak Herzog, Minister for the Jewish communities worldwide and the fight against anti-Semitism.
M.P. John Mann said that it is the intention of the British Government to suggest holding the next Forum against anti-Semitism Conference, in London next year. The representatives of all the forty states who attended the Conference supported the idea of an international coalition against anti-Semitism and expressed their readiness to be part of it. A number of them expressed appreciation for Israel Foreign Office, the fight against anti-Semitism Department and congratulated Minister Herzog for the impressive and important Conference, which succeeded to create a momentum and a feeling of commitment, they said, that they will take back home with them.
At the end of the event, the Foreign Office Department against anti-Semitism Director, Mrs Aviva Rose Shechter, said that the general feeling among the participants is that the Conference has succeeded what it aimed at, that is: “ an international Forum where both Jewish and non-Jewish representatives felt deeply committed to the fight against anti-Semitism”. Mrs Shechter added that the declaration of the creation of an international coalition against anti-Semitism and the intention to hold next year Forum in Brittany show indeed the success of the Conference.
Date: Feb 25, 2008
22-02-2008 / Russia
Russia - Suspended Sentence for Painting Death Threats on Jewish Cultural Center
A court in Izhevsk, sentenced a store manager to a suspended sentence of three years in prison after finding him guilty of inciting ethnic hatred and vandalism motivated by ethnic hatred. Nineteen year old Aleksandr Krinitsyn painted death threats against Jews on the walls of the local Jewish community center three times in November-December 2007 before being caught with a spray can.
Source: www.fsumonitor.com
Date: February 22, 2008
19-02-2008 / United States
USA - LA mayor denounces attack on Jewish campus
Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa denounced a Molotov cocktail attack on a Jewish community campus in the city, calling it a "sad reminder" of racism.
"Yesterday's attack ... is a poignant and sad reminder that racism, anti-Semitism and prejudice still exist in our society," Villaraigosa said in a statement.
"In a city defined by unparalleled diversity, hate crimes of any kind will not be tolerated and this incident will not go unanswered," Villaraigosa said.
"In one voice, we must condemn this attack," Villaraigosa said."As one city, we must work to ensure that no Angeleno is forced to fear for their lives or their safety because of their race, religion or ethnicity."
Source:
www.chinaview.cn
Date: Feb 19, 2008
18-02-2008 / Israel
Israel - Israel complains to UN over Iranian general's remarks
The Foreign Ministry instructed the Israeli delegation to the UN to issue a letter of complaint and protest to the president of the Security Council regarding the comments made by General Mohammad Ali Jaafari, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
The Iranian general sent a letter of condolences to Hizbullah saying he believed "the cancerous bacterium called Israel" would vanish soon, according to report by the Iranian news agency Fars.
"Jaafari's remarks express hope for the destruction of Israel. This is an anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic and racist remark," the Ministry said in a statement.
The Foreign Ministry noted that the latest Iranian commentary was over the line and bordered on anti-Semitism reminiscent of the Nazis. "We haven't seen things like this in a long time," a ministry official said.
"This is an unparalleled remark and our job is to go out and defend ourselves and protest. We are not used to doing this everyday but this time it was something especially grave."
Source: www.ynet.co.il
Date: Feb 18, 2008
By Roee Nahmias
18-02-2008 / France
France - Judge Order Trials for 29 Suspects in Kidnapping, Torture, Killing Ilan Halimi
French judges are sending 29 people to trial for the torture and killing Ilan Halimi, two years ago.
Authorities said 21 of the suspects, including alleged ringleader Youssouf Fofana, would be tried by a youth court, because two of them were minors at the time of the killing in February 2006. Their trial is expected to be held behind closed doors, and is not expected before next year.
Eight others will be tried by other courts.
Authorities found the 23-year-old naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks near railroad tracks in the Essonne region south of Paris. He died on the way to the hospital after being held captive for more than three weeks.
Chief suspect Fofana, 27, risks life imprisonment. He faces charges of kidnapping and of acts of torture and murder with religious, racial or ethnic motives. He is also accused of five other attempted kidnappings.
Fofana, a Frenchman of Ivorian descent, fled to Ivory Coast and was arrested there and extradited to France.
Source:
www.foxnews.com
Date: February 18, 2008
13-02-2008 / Russia
Russia - Ex-Minister Convicted of Hate Crime
A Novosibirsk court convicted former Press Minister Boris Mironov of inciting ethnic hatred but released him because the statute of limitations had expired.
The charges against Mironov, 56, stem from two articles he contributed to a local election campaign pamphlet in 2003 that prosecutors said contained anti-Semitic remarks.
Mironov served as press minister under President Boris Yeltsin from December 1993 until September 1994. During his tenure, Izvestia and Moskovskiye Novosti campaigned against him for his nationalist, anti-Semitic remarks. In 2000 he helped arrange a news conference in Moscow for former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Source: www.themoscowtimes.com
Date: February 13, 2008
10-02-2008 / France
France - French police officers face charges over anti-Semitic remarks
Three police officers and two others faced charges of inciting racial hatred for allegedly making anti-Semitic remarks at a bar in the northern town of Amiens.
A judicial inquiry has also been opened against two of the suspects, including one of the officers, for "acts of intimidation against a victim."
The victim in question, the bar owner, filed a writ against the men for reportedly threatening him with reprisals if he revealed what they had done.
One of the three police officers had ties with France's far-right National Front party, according to sources close to the inquiry.
The two civilians were identified as a butcher and the manager of a meat business.
The five were released under judicial supervision, as prosecutors recommended.
If found guilty, they could face up to a year in prison.
Source: www.ejpress.org
Date: Feb 10, 2008
