The resurrection of a website advocating the genocide of Jews and Canadians, founded by a Toronto extremist who is wanted by police, highlights the difficulties of policing the Internet, where public postings can be generated and disseminated from almost anywhere.
The website was founded by Salman Hossain, 25, a Canadian extremist who fled Canada earlier this year during a police investigation into use of the Internet to promote terrorist violence in Canada.
Police subsequently charged him with five hate crimes -- two counts of advocating genocide and three counts of promoting hatred -- but have so far been unable to locate him.
The site was shut down after the charges were laid.
The National Post reported last month that the site had reemerged on a U.S. free-speech server but was again shut down. This month it found a new home, through Internet servers based in Switzerland.
"We are aware that he has a website up and running in various locations," said Inspector Dave Ross of the Ontario Provincial Police. "We are monitoring it and are continuing to liaise with enforcement agencies around the world. We are actively seeking him. We haven't forgotten about him. Our hope is that some day you will see him back in Canada in custody."
The fact that the alleged crimes continue despite his fugitive status shows the difficulties of such cases.
"The Internet poses very unique challenges to law enforcement agencies around the world, not only for hate crimes but a vast number of offences. It has certainly opened the global marketplace to criminals of all types," said Insp. Ross.
Mr. Hossain is wanted by the OPP for advocating genocide and is named in a worldwide Interpol fugitive list. He is believed to have returned to his native Bangladesh and appears to have had technological issues with accessing the Internet.
This month any obstacles were overcome and the website Filthy Jewish Terrorists renewed its stream of violent imagery, language and fierce anti-Jewish and anti-Western sentiments.
"He's never had any concern for the warrant hanging over his head. He is thumbing his nose at Canadian police and at Interpol. The site is up and gotten even more vile," said Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
"It speaks to the ineffectiveness of the law in terms of trying to deal with modern technology. A lot of the law dealing with hate crimes is based on the fact that people are living in Western countries where the law applies. But Salman Hossain left and is clearly living in a place where Western law and Western mores have no meaning and so he is basically free to post whatever he wants.
"I do believe the law will eventually catch up to him. "
One article on the site, listed as having been written by Mr. Hossain and posted Dec. 17, again encourages the killing of Jews and Westerners and expresses hope his articles harm Western society.
"I encourage Iran to get assistance from others in committing a full scale genocide against the Jew run nations of the Western World (Australia, Europe and North America to be more precise). Killing them with bio-genetic weaponry would literally be the best option," it says in part.
Another article, posted on Dec. 18, is entitled: "Learning How To Identify Jews During Roundup Time!"
Despite that type of content, the website offers a "legal disclaimer" that states: "Our web site does not advocate terrorism or genocide against any people. All information on this site is for informational purposes only."
A phone call and email from the National Post to the contact information provided for the site's domain registration in Lucerne, Switzerland, went unanswered yesterday.
National Post
Thursday, 23 December 2010
COULD HUNGARIAN ANTI-SEMITISM GET OUT OF CONTROL?
The rise of Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party has ratcheted up debate about anti-Semitism in this country and focused attention on the seeming paradoxes of Jewish life here. On the one hand, a recent article in Germany's Der Spiegel described Budapest as "Europe's capital of anti-Semitism," where Jews are "being openly intimidated" and making plans to leave the country. On the other, Hungary is home to a flourishing and multifaceted Jewish life that finds vigorous public expression in religious, cultural and even culinary ways, and also enjoys high-profile government recognition.
I saw this myself at Chanukah when I munched on latkes at a Friday night oneg Shabbat, sampled doughnuts at a sit-down dinner for Holocaust survivors, joined 20-somethings at a riotous klezmer/hip-hop gig, and just missed witnessing the foreign minister, Budapest's mayor and other VIPs help light a big menorah set up in the center of town. While anti-Semitism remains a serious concern in this central European country, Budapest-based Jewish writer Adam LeBor wrote in the Economist, the Der Spiegel article was a one-sided screed that portrayed the Jewish experience in Hungary "solely through the warped prism of anti-Semitism rather than its much more complex, and healthy, reality."
A timely and important new book puts contemporary Hungarian anti-Semitism into perspective. Based on studies carried out since the early 1990s, "The Stranger at Hand: Antisemitic Prejudices in Post-Communist Hungary" is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the scope and impact of the phenomenon. It’s just too bad that its $131 price tag will put it out of reach of many potential readers. Written by Andras Kovacs, a sociologist at Budapest's Central European University who has devoted decades to tracking both the development of anti-Semitism and the development of Jewish life and identity here, the book presents a highly complex and sometimes contradictory picture. A large part of Hungarian society, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is convinced that anti-Semitism has increased in Hungary since the fall of communism, Kovacs writes. "What is said on the street, written in newspapers, and heard on the radio can and does give rise to concern," he writes. “Are the fears legitimate?" The answer, he told JTA in an interview, is a mix of yes, no and maybe.
Jobbik, with its anti-Semitic rhetoric and virulently anti-Roma, or Gypsy, political platform, won nearly 17 percent of the vote in April elections and entered Parliament as Hungary's third-largest party. But recent evidence shows that it has been losing support amid divisive internal squabbles, and newly imposed legal measures have clamped down hard on its once-feared paramilitary wing, the Hungarian Guard. Still, Jobbik did not emerge from thin air, and Kovacs's book traces the evolution of several anti-Semitic trends against a shifting background of political and social change.
He identifies three main types of anti-Semitism in Hungary. The first is "classic" anti-Jewish prejudice, based on social and religious stereotypes that date back centuries and were kept alive, if suppressed, under communism. The second occurs when anti-Semitism becomes a sort of "language and culture" that fosters a general anti-Semitic worldview. The third is political anti-Semitism, "where political activists discover that they can mobilize certain social groups by using anti-Semitic slogans to achieve their own goals."
Kovacs' research shows the recent growth in anti-Semitism to be qualitative rather than quantitative. Surveys show that 10 to 15 percent of Hungarians are hard-core anti-Semites, while another 25 percent nurtures anti-Jewish prejudices to some degree. Contrary to popular perception, Kovacs said, these figures "have increased to some extent but not dramatically over the past 17 years." What is different and much more alarming, according to Kovacs, is how the type and expression of anti-Semitism is changing within that proportion. For one thing, the percentage of political anti-Semites has grown. These political anti-Semites, he said, are "more urban, better educated and relatively younger" than they tended to be in the past.
Jobbik's key leaders, for example, are youthful, clean cut, and media and Internet-savvy -- factors that helped enhance their appeal ahead of the April vote. Related to this is the way hate speech among the general public has been emboldened by the open use of anti-Semitic and anti-Roma rhetoric by extreme right public figures. Kovacs calls this a "dangerous dynamic." He said young people in particular frequently seem to lose their inhibitions, and their use of slurs against Jews and Roma often goes unchecked by parents, teachers and other authority figures. "We know that people are much more cautious in expressing their prejudices if they think that it is not legitimate," Kovacs said. "But when they realize that so-called important people use this language openly, they feel they can use it as well. This is what we feel now in Budapest."
What follows is unclear. So far, Jobbik's anti-Jewish rhetoric seems aimed at creating a body of like-minded followers rather than serving as a rallying cry for concrete political action against Jews, according to Kovacs. But could the extreme right eventually elevate political anti-Semitism into a force with significant mainstream influence? Kovacs thinks it's unlikely, but ultimately, he writes in his book, it will depend on how Hungary's mainstream cultural and political leaders react to any attempts to "transform the prejudice that once affected the margins of Hungarian society into a language, culture and ideology."
JTA
I saw this myself at Chanukah when I munched on latkes at a Friday night oneg Shabbat, sampled doughnuts at a sit-down dinner for Holocaust survivors, joined 20-somethings at a riotous klezmer/hip-hop gig, and just missed witnessing the foreign minister, Budapest's mayor and other VIPs help light a big menorah set up in the center of town. While anti-Semitism remains a serious concern in this central European country, Budapest-based Jewish writer Adam LeBor wrote in the Economist, the Der Spiegel article was a one-sided screed that portrayed the Jewish experience in Hungary "solely through the warped prism of anti-Semitism rather than its much more complex, and healthy, reality."
A timely and important new book puts contemporary Hungarian anti-Semitism into perspective. Based on studies carried out since the early 1990s, "The Stranger at Hand: Antisemitic Prejudices in Post-Communist Hungary" is the most comprehensive analysis to date of the scope and impact of the phenomenon. It’s just too bad that its $131 price tag will put it out of reach of many potential readers. Written by Andras Kovacs, a sociologist at Budapest's Central European University who has devoted decades to tracking both the development of anti-Semitism and the development of Jewish life and identity here, the book presents a highly complex and sometimes contradictory picture. A large part of Hungarian society, both Jewish and non-Jewish, is convinced that anti-Semitism has increased in Hungary since the fall of communism, Kovacs writes. "What is said on the street, written in newspapers, and heard on the radio can and does give rise to concern," he writes. “Are the fears legitimate?" The answer, he told JTA in an interview, is a mix of yes, no and maybe.
Jobbik, with its anti-Semitic rhetoric and virulently anti-Roma, or Gypsy, political platform, won nearly 17 percent of the vote in April elections and entered Parliament as Hungary's third-largest party. But recent evidence shows that it has been losing support amid divisive internal squabbles, and newly imposed legal measures have clamped down hard on its once-feared paramilitary wing, the Hungarian Guard. Still, Jobbik did not emerge from thin air, and Kovacs's book traces the evolution of several anti-Semitic trends against a shifting background of political and social change.
He identifies three main types of anti-Semitism in Hungary. The first is "classic" anti-Jewish prejudice, based on social and religious stereotypes that date back centuries and were kept alive, if suppressed, under communism. The second occurs when anti-Semitism becomes a sort of "language and culture" that fosters a general anti-Semitic worldview. The third is political anti-Semitism, "where political activists discover that they can mobilize certain social groups by using anti-Semitic slogans to achieve their own goals."
Kovacs' research shows the recent growth in anti-Semitism to be qualitative rather than quantitative. Surveys show that 10 to 15 percent of Hungarians are hard-core anti-Semites, while another 25 percent nurtures anti-Jewish prejudices to some degree. Contrary to popular perception, Kovacs said, these figures "have increased to some extent but not dramatically over the past 17 years." What is different and much more alarming, according to Kovacs, is how the type and expression of anti-Semitism is changing within that proportion. For one thing, the percentage of political anti-Semites has grown. These political anti-Semites, he said, are "more urban, better educated and relatively younger" than they tended to be in the past.
Jobbik's key leaders, for example, are youthful, clean cut, and media and Internet-savvy -- factors that helped enhance their appeal ahead of the April vote. Related to this is the way hate speech among the general public has been emboldened by the open use of anti-Semitic and anti-Roma rhetoric by extreme right public figures. Kovacs calls this a "dangerous dynamic." He said young people in particular frequently seem to lose their inhibitions, and their use of slurs against Jews and Roma often goes unchecked by parents, teachers and other authority figures. "We know that people are much more cautious in expressing their prejudices if they think that it is not legitimate," Kovacs said. "But when they realize that so-called important people use this language openly, they feel they can use it as well. This is what we feel now in Budapest."
What follows is unclear. So far, Jobbik's anti-Jewish rhetoric seems aimed at creating a body of like-minded followers rather than serving as a rallying cry for concrete political action against Jews, according to Kovacs. But could the extreme right eventually elevate political anti-Semitism into a force with significant mainstream influence? Kovacs thinks it's unlikely, but ultimately, he writes in his book, it will depend on how Hungary's mainstream cultural and political leaders react to any attempts to "transform the prejudice that once affected the margins of Hungarian society into a language, culture and ideology."
JTA
Channel 4 urged to sack comedian Frankie Boyle in race jibe row (UK)
Friends claim he has laughed off calls for him to be banned from TV following a deluge of complaints about racist language in his Channel 4 show Tramadol Nights.
Many viewers were outraged after he used the P-word and n-word during a series of near-the-knuckle sketches.
One skit involved a woman dressed as Super Mario. She danced provocatively in front of the cameras before waving and saying: “Hello to P***’s everywhere.”
Then during his stand-up routine Boyle, 38, turned the subject to war.
He said: “Basically we are murdering a load of shepherds. What gets me is our callousness as a society when we read out our dead on the news first, because our lives are more important. Other people’s aren’t worth as much.”
Adopting a newsreader’s tone, he added: “A bomb went off in Kandahar today, killing two British servicemen, three UN relief workers and a whole bunch of P****.”
Later he said: “The Ministry of Defence? At least in the old days we were honest, it was The Ministry of War.”
In a posh phone voice he added: “Hello Ministry of War, department of n*****-bombing, how can I help?”
His remarks triggered a furious reaction. A spokesman for Show Racism the Red Card said: “We condemn Frankie Boyle’s use of racist terminology.
“Regardless of context and intention, the use of words such as these has the effect of normalising racist language.
“That is never acceptable. It is dehumanising and provides the foundations on which serious hate crimes are built.” MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee, said: “There’s no question that these words are deeply offensive to many people.
“I think it’s entirely right that Ofcom should carry out an immediate investigation to decide whether this is acceptable.
“It’s very hard to justify – even in terms of political satire.”
On Digital spy forums, Dolly Stanford said: “He used to be funny and offensive, now he is just offensive. Shame.”
Another viewer said: “I liked him on Mock the Week, but this is just dreadful.”
Scots-born Boyle, who writes a column for the Sun, has already faced a barrage of criticism over earlier shows in which he made sexual jibes about Katie Price and her disabled son Harvey.
He also cracked sick jokes about cancer victims and mocked people with Aids.
Channel 4 – slammed three years ago for refusing to take responsibility for the Shilpa Shetty Celebrity Big Brother race row – seemed to be trying to tough it out again last night.
It pointed out that a warning was broadcast before Tuesday night’s show that it “contained very strong language and uncompromising adult content which some viewers will find offensive”.
But critics argue that Boyle’s comments breach TV rule 2.3 regarding “generally accepted standards”. It says any broadcast must justify in context any discriminatory language regarding race. Earlier this year Boyle had an on-stage run-in with the mother of a Down’s syndrome child. He spent five minutes of a stand-up show poking fun at sufferers and their parents by criticising their hair, clothing and voices.
He then turned on the audience, picking on a couple – Sharon and Keiron Smith – in the front row and accusing them of talking. Laughter turned to awkward silence when Mrs Smith told Boyle: “My daughter has Down’s syndrome and I’m very upset.”
Boyle retorted: “This is my last tour. I don’t give a f*** what people think.” Insiders at Channel 4 privately admitted the outspoken comedian has been testing executives’ patience.
But Shane Allen, the channel’s head of comedy commissioning, insisted: “We refute any suggestion we are endorsing or condoning racist language.
“This cutting edge comedy is clearly intended to ridicule and satirise the use of these words – Frankie Boyle was not endorsing them.”
- BOYLE also made a cruel jibe about missing Madeline McCann. Describing things you could say to change the atmosphere at a dinner party, he said: “We are all here – who’s looking after Madeleine?” A spokesman for Kate and Gerry McCann said: “It was deeply offensive.”
Daily Mirror
LEADING PRIEST BLAMES JEWS FOR GREECE’S PROBLEMS
A high-level priest on the morning show of the largest television station in Greece blamed world Jewry for Greece's financial problems. The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim also blamed world Jewry for other ills in the country during his appearance on Mega TV. Mixing Freemasons with Jewish bankers such as Baron Rothschild and world Zionism, the Metropolite said that there is a conspiracy to enslave Greece and Christian Orthodoxy. He also accused international Zionism of trying to destroy the family unit by promoting one-parent families and same-sex marriages.
Thirteen minutes into the program the Greek host asked the Metropolite, "Why do you disagree with Hitler's policies? If they are doing all this, wasn't he right in burning them?" The Metropolite answered, "Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire."
Jews such as "Rockefeller, Rothschild and Soros control the international banking system that controls globalization," the Metropolite also said. The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim is not the only Greek priest with such extreme ideas, as Salonika's Metropolite Anthimos also has preached similar ideas from his pulpit. "Watching and listening to the program, I felt disgust hearing the Metropolite of Piraeus expressing himself like that against world Zionism, and shamelessly saying that Hitler with the help of Jewish bankers did what he did," said Benjamin Albala, president of the Athens Jewish community.
JTA
Thirteen minutes into the program the Greek host asked the Metropolite, "Why do you disagree with Hitler's policies? If they are doing all this, wasn't he right in burning them?" The Metropolite answered, "Adolf Hitler was an instrument of world Zionism and was financed from the renowned Rothschild family with the sole purpose of convincing the Jews to leave the shores of Europe and go to Israel to establish the new Empire."
Jews such as "Rockefeller, Rothschild and Soros control the international banking system that controls globalization," the Metropolite also said. The Metropolite of Piraeus Seraphim is not the only Greek priest with such extreme ideas, as Salonika's Metropolite Anthimos also has preached similar ideas from his pulpit. "Watching and listening to the program, I felt disgust hearing the Metropolite of Piraeus expressing himself like that against world Zionism, and shamelessly saying that Hitler with the help of Jewish bankers did what he did," said Benjamin Albala, president of the Athens Jewish community.
JTA
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)