A/49/677
English
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Recently, attacks have been perpetrated against individual Jews. New
methods are also being used to disseminate anti-Semitic propaganda: video
games, computer programmes. In France, Minitel has lately been used to
disseminate anti-Jewish messages. For some time now in Western Europe,
anti-Semitism, like racism, has occasionally been part of the electoral
platform of certain political parties of the right and extreme right and
acts as a rallying cry among people who recognize each other. In this
case, the language used is coded in order to bypass the anti-racist
legislation adopted by many countries. This anti-racist legislation of
European countries, although not very effective, does at least exist.
Nevertheless, the most radical anti-Semites find ways of bypassing it. 45/
The post-communist societies of Eastern Europe are also experiencing a
resurgence of anti-Semitism. In Russia, glasnost had already allowed the
free expression of hatred against the Jews. The anti-Semitic movement
Pamyat (Memory), the best known, is only one anti-Semitic organization
among others. The anti-Semitism which is prevalent today is a popular
anti-Semitism encouraged by the fundamentalism of the Orthodox Church. A
more elitist anti-Semitism, found in literature, parallels the "street
anti-Semitism". It is with anxiety, if not terror, that one listens to and
reads what is said and written by the politician Zhirinovsky, who owes his
popularity largely to his anti-Semitic utterances to which the
international media accord enormous attention."
100. The Special Rapporteur’s attention has also been drawn by the
Council of Jewish Women to the growth of anti-Semitism in the Arab
countries, where the notorious sham entitled the "Protocols of the
Zion" is being spread by Islamic fundamentalist circles to a broad
International
and Muslim
Elders of
audience.
"The ’Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ are a great success, both in
Eastern Europe and in Russia, where this travesty originated, and in South
America, Japan and even Australia, where the work has recently been
reissued.
"Another form of anti-Semitism is not aimed at the ’public at large’
but at intellectuals: denial. Those who engage in denial describe
themselves as ’revisionists’, but in reality they are falsifying the
history of the Nazi period. They attack Jewish history and memory, most
often with impunity, and deny the historic facts of the extermination of
6 million Jews during the Second World War. Some countries, particularly
in Europe (France, Germany and Belgium, for example), have devised very
specific legislation to curb this phenomenon. Others rely on anti-racist
laws (against incitement to ethnic and religious hatred, etc.) which are in
fact inadequate to contain it.
"In the United States of America, the interpretation of the First
Amendment to the Constitution allows the dissemination of all types of
ideas, even those which are anti-democratic. In view of this, some thought
should be given to the acceptable limits of freedom of expression in the
light of the concept set forth in article 20 of the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits advocacy of racial
hatred. 46/ In this country, anti-Semitism is overtaking even university
campuses. Recently, speakers from the ’Nation of Islam’, university
/...