A/58/313 September to 10 October 2003, at the invitation of the Colombian Government, to evaluate the progress made in implementing the recommendations of his predecessor, who visited the country in 1998. The Special Rapporteur also intends to look into the implementation of the national development plan for the AfroColombian populations adopted by the Government in 1998, and also look into the situation of indigenous people. He will report on those missions at the sixtieth session of the Commission on Human Rights. 23. With regard to the situation in Côte d’Ivoire, the Government has agreed to welcome the Special Rapporteur during October 2003. This will be a joint visit with the Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression to consider the status of inter-ethnic relations and measures taken by the Government to redress the manifestations of xenophobia that arose during the conflict of 19 October 2002. III. Manifestations of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance 24. The Special Rapporteur would like to draw the attention of the General Assembly to the persistence of racist propaganda on the Internet, the upsurge of racism in sports and the manifestation of racism in connection with anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. A. Racist propaganda on the Internet 25. The Internet continues to serve as an instrument for widespread dissemination of heinous speech by racist and xenophobic organizations. In its report entitled Digital Terrorism and Hate 2003, the Simon Wiesenthal Center (www.wiesenthal.com), a pioneer in monitoring the activities of racist organizations on the Internet, identified several thousand sites engaged in racist propaganda, xenophobia and related intolerance. The Special Rapporteur would like to recall that paragraphs 144 to 147 of the Durban Programme of Action recommend that States should encourage the media to adopt self-regulatory measures to enable them to combat the use of the Internet for racist ends and apply legal sanctions against any incitement to racial hatred. In that respect, the Special Rapporteur commends the adoption on 7 November 2002 by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe of the Additional Protocol to the Convention on Cybercrime concerning the Criminalization of Acts of a Racist or Xenophobic Nature Committed Through Computer Systems. The Protocol, which has already been ratified by 11 States (Armenia, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands and Sweden), defines the common legal bases of parties to suppress the dissemination of written materials, images or any other representation of ideas or theories that advocate or encourage hatred, discrimination or violence against a person or group of persons on the basis of race, colour, descent or national or ethnic origin, or religion. The Protocol also provides for international cooperation to combat racist or xenophobic propaganda through the use of computers. The Special Rapporteur hopes that a similar document will emerge at the international level in the form of an additional protocol to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination2 so that more States can adopt legal measures to combat the use of the Internet for racist or xenophobic purposes. 12

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