E/CN.4/1996/72/Add.3
page 34
By contrast, the number of anti-Semitic threats
compared to 1993 (164).
5
dipped somewhat (143)
Certain acts of violence stand out in particular because of the strength
of the reaction they aroused within the community:
On 18 May, in Rillieux-la-Pape (69), the plaque commemorating the
execution of the seven Jewish hostages shot by the Lyon militia
on 29 June 1944 was destroyed. This desecration occurred almost a
month after Paul Touvier was sentenced to life imprisonment for his role
in that incident. During the night of 6-7 July, the new commemorative
plaque was also destroyed;
In October, several deputies from eastern France and Ile-de-France
received the revisionist work, “L’holocauste au scanner”, by the Swiss
Jürgen Graf, distributed from Belgium. This book was banned in France
in December 1994;
On 9 November, in Paris, tear-gas was thrown into two cinemas showing
the film “Tsahal”, about the Israeli army. Responsibility was
immediately claimed by the Union Defence Group (GUD), which intended
to “express its solidarity with the Palestinian people, the victim of
daily atrocities committed by the Zionist occupation army”. Several
members of this group, who were brought in for hearings the next day,
were not recognized by witnesses.
Like leaflets with racist connotations, anti-Semitic pamphlets circulate
with a maximum of discretion, left in letter boxes or sent through the post to
persons assumed to belong to the Jewish community. Although revisionist
tracts are tending to decline gradually as a result of the many proceedings
brought against the negationists, a large number of books and brochures were
published in 1994.
Arrests
Eleven persons were arrested in 1991 for anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist
6
acts, and nine in 1992.
The latter included the six skinheads identified as
the persons who desecrated the Jewish cemetery in Lyon during the night of 1213 September.
There were no arrests in 1993.
In 1994, eight arrests were recorded, all followed by legal proceedings.
5
However, these figures do not always reflect the magnitude of certain
occurrences. The distribution of a leaflet received by many persons on the
same day is reported as one and the same incident, in the same way as the
dissemination of a tract to just one recipient.
6
The police do not systematically receive reports of legal proceedings.