A/50/476 English Page 24 65. In Sweden, 1994 was marked by acts directed against minorities. At least a dozen immigrants were allegedly assaulted and several houses and shops were apparently the targets of arson or were at least damaged. The Government is said to have ordered investigations and prosecuted the persons responsible for those crimes, who in many cases were sentenced to prison. 29/ 66. In the Netherlands, the number of racist incidents occurring in 1993 was estimated at 350. 30/ 67. In Indonesia, Indonesians of Chinese origin are prohibited from engaging in some of their cultural activities. It is strictly prohibited for them to spread their culture, celebrate their feasts, use Chinese characters, let alone publish articles in Chinese, except those appearing in a daily newspaper belonging to the Government. 31/ D. Racism and racial discrimination against Blacks, negrophobia 68. Racism and racial discrimination against Blacks, negrophobia, continues to exist in various forms in a number of countries. 69. According to the Quebec Committee for the recognition of the Rights of Haitian Workers in the Dominican Republic, which addressed the Subcommission at its forty-seventh session, the situation in the Dominican Republic of the 500,000 braceros (sugar-cane cutters) who are Haitians and Dominicans born in Haiti, is alarming. The working conditions of this underpaid workforce, which has no legal status, were already denounced by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in a report in 1983, but the Dominican Republic has failed to pay any heed to such criticism. The Committee still maintains that these men are "often condemned to live without drinking water or latrines and without access to basic health care or education for their children. Repression, arbitrary detention, the suppression of their freedom of movement, persecution, threats and forced labour are for them an everyday experience". Here again, racism is the primary cause of and at the same time the justification for these violations of the rights and dignity of this Black minority. This manifestation of racism seems to find support at the highest level of the Dominican State, whose President, His Excellency Joaquin Balaguer, wrote that "(...) while [the Haitians] reside in Dominican territory, some of them are having children, which increases the Black population and serves to corrupt the ethnic complexion of the country". 32/ Or still further, "(...) the excess population in Haiti constitutes a growing threat for the Dominican Republic. ... Blacks, left to their instincts and unchecked by the restraint that would be imposed on them by a relatively high living standard, as they are in all countries, reproduce with a rapidity resembling that of plant species". 33/ 70. In Canada, racial hatred is being increasingly spread by groups that preach the "supremacy of the white race" and are linked to extreme right-wing paramilitary groups in the United States of America. Groups such as "the Aryan Nation" or "the Heritage Front", which are descendants of the first Canadian Ku Klux Klan cell established in 1921, openly flaunt their hatred of Blacks. Weapons seizures carried out by the police among some of the militants in these organizations have given rise to fears on the part of many observers of further /...