A/58/313 including the media and the Internet. In the countries in which it is most common, it should be treated as an incitement to hatred which is punishable by law. 37. In some countries, Muslims and people who are or are assumed to be of Arab origin are victims of both open and disguised hostility in daily life. Mosques have been set on fire and Muslim cemeteries desecrated. There have been reports of daily attacks on Muslim women wearing the veil and on bearded Muslim men. People with Muslim- or Arab-sounding names often suffer discrimination when looking for jobs or accommodation. The Special Rapporteur has also heard allegations of Muslim and/or Arab travellers suffering discrimination when applying for visas or when entering or residing in a number of countries. The Special Rapporteur’s report underlines the particularly serious nature of political validation through pronouncements by politicians and in publications by intellectuals. The report to the Commission on Human Rights will provide facts which will help to judge how widespread this phenomenon is throughout the world. IV. Action taken or planned by Governments, judicial authorities or other bodies A. Measures to combat racist propaganda and incitement to racial hatred 38. Australia and South Africa have taken significant decisions aimed at banning the dissemination of racist language and incitement to racial hatred. In September 2002, at the request of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry and the Australian Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Australia’s Federal Court ordered the Adelaide Institute to remove from its web site all denials of the Jewish holocaust. The Adelaide Institute is headed by the revisionist Frederick Toben. The decision shows that dissemination of racism by the Internet can be fought legitimately without harming freedom of opinion and expression. 39. The South African Human Rights Commission adopted a decision on 18 July 2003 which deemed the slogan “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer”, chanted by African National Congress activists at the funeral last year of a leader of the anti-apartheid movement, not to be protected by the freedom-of-expression provisions of the Constitution. In a reversal of its previous position, the Commission took the view that the right to freedom of expression did not rank above other human rights, including the right to human dignity, and that the call to murder a group of individuals should be considered a potentially harmful incitement to hatred. That decision provides food for thought to the proponents of an inviolable right to freedom of expression. B. Measures for Sinti/Roma/travellers 40. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the World Bank’s support for the efforts of a number of Governments in Central and Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovakia) to improve the living conditions of Sinti/Roma/travellers and to encourage their integration. The World Bank will contribute to an education fund for those 15

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