E/CN.4/1998/79 page 14 E. Discrimination against migrant workers 47. As the Special Rapporteur told the Third Committee of the General Assembly, one of the major problems in the last years of the century is discrimination, which is increasingly affecting foreigners in general and migrant workers in particular in host countries. The globalization of international economic relations has led many countries to take legislative and regulatory measures to protect their domestic labour force, which are discriminatory and xenophobic and disregard the principle of the free circulation of persons. Such practices are especially prevalent in industrialized and even middle-income countries. Most of these countries' legislations are applying more and more restrictions on the entry of southern nationals or persons from outside their regional unions. This policy of national preference often goes hand in hand with a complementary policy of regional, if not racial preference. Thus traditional European host countries have adopted a policy of so-called “concentric circles”, which consists in allowing preferential entry to immigrants according to their origin, those from Western countries coming first, followed by nationals of Eastern Europe, etc. Persons not belonging to these two preferential categories are de facto excluded by the subtle system of elimination based on regional preference. 48. To such legislative and institutional difficulties should be added discriminatory acts against established immigrants. These acts often take the form of contemptuous remarks against them, but sometimes also acts of violence leading to injuries and in some cases to death. In previous reports, the Special Rapporteur has given many examples of such incidents. In view of such acts, the situation of vulnerable groups of immigrants, especially women and children, is a matter of great concern. The Special Rapporteur in this regard welcomes the adoption by the Commission on Human Rights of resolution 1997/13 of 3 April 1997, condemning violence against women migrant workers. F. Discrimination and incitement to racial hatred on the Internet 49. In previous reports, the Special Rapporteur drew attention to an upsurge in the number of racist and xenophobic acts occurring on the Internet. A report distributed at the seminar on the subject organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in November 1997 drew up a list of over 100 extremist, especially neo-Nazi sites and servers, advocating white supremacy, “white power” and inciting racial hatred. For example, the White Aryan Nationalists, supporters of the Ku Klux Klan, call for the defence of the Aryan race, which they maintain is threatened by immigration from the third world (source: http://home.worldcom.ch/e fischer/d/artghe html). In Switzerland, the “hammer skins” offer an electronic newspaper on the web. For them, “terrorism is just another form of political action” and in order to “clean up the planet, it has to be cured, that is, purified by eliminating all Blacks, Jews and Arabs”. 50. Although the States have now become aware of the dangers these acts represent, very few efforts have been made to combat the phenomenon. The States which have adopted legislation have done so rather in isolation. In his last report, the Special Rapporteur already mentioned the case of Germany (A/52/471). The case of Switzerland may now be added, as the country recently added a new article 261 bis to its Penal Code, forbidding all racist