The trial of Hungarian Nazi war crime suspect Sandor Kepiro resumed on Thursday after physical and mental health checks showed the 97-year-old was fit enough to attend, even if extremely frail.
During the short hearing, Judge Bela Varga read out a statement dating back to 1948 by one of the soldiers - since deceased - whom Kepiro allegedly ordered to round up and shoot 30 people in the Serbian town of Novi Sad in 1942.
Kepiro, who appeared in court in a wheelchair, dismissed the statement as a "blatant lie", insisted he did not know the solider, named as Janos Nagy, and again denied any involvement in the killings.
Little information is available about Nagy, other than he was tried and sentenced to life for murder by a communist court in 1948.
The case against Kepiro rests almost exclusively on such written statements by soldiers who are now dead, as well as documents from a trial in 1942 in which Kepiro was found guilty in absentia.
Experts have argued that there were numerous errors and omissions in the translation of a number of those court documents, thus casting doubt on their reliability.
Deteriorating mental state
The Budapest court ruled that the latest trial could be resumed after medical examinations showed the defendant, while hard of hearing and very frail, was in full possession of his faculties.
"Sandor Kepiro's mental state is not impaired and he is able to understand and process information from outside," judge Varga said.
"Nevertheless, due to his advanced age, his mental state deteriorates rapidly after two sessions of 45 minutes," Varga said.
There would be three more days of hearings, with the next one scheduled for May 24, with a verdict expected on June 3, the judge explained.
Kepiro turned up in court on Thursday in a wheelchair and wearing a set of headphones that would enable him to hear the proceedings clearly.
He answered in the affirmative when the judge asked him whether he was able to hear and understand what had been said so far.
Facing life sentence
Kepiro - one of the last suspected Nazi war criminals to go on trial - is being tried in connection with a raid by Hungarian forces on Novi Sad between January 21 and 23 1942, in which more than 1 200 Jews and Serbs were murdered.
Specifically, he is charged, as head of one of the patrols involved in the raids, with having ordered the rounding up and execution of 36 people.
If found guilty, he could face a life sentence.
The former Hungarian gendarmerie officer was formerly number one on the list of wanted Nazi criminals by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre.
News 24
Saturday, 21 May 2011
Facebook pages of Czech MP and mayor spreading racism
Šulc claims to have no memory of placing the photograph, with the subtitle "If they want aid, let's make it real aid", on his profile page, even though he is listed as the page's author. "I know nothing about it, if something like that is there, I will have it removed," he told Czech Television. He refused a further interview and the photograph was gone by the afternoon.
According to Martin Šimáček, director of the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion of Roma, such photographs on the Facebook pages of politicians merely serve to incite tensions in the regions, which are already rather problematic as it is. He believes the incident may even rise to the level of a felony. "On the one had it is a racial attack on the Roma population in the Czech Republic, but it is also unacceptable given what has happened in Haiti," Šimáček said.
This is not Šulc's first problem with controversial pronouncements. Prior to the regional elections in October 2008, he put up posters with the slogan "Gadje [non-Roma people], get to work, so we [Roma] can have a better life". The case was investigated by police and shelved for lack of evidence that a crime had been committed.
Luděk Kvapil, the Mayor of Kmetiněves who was also a TOP 09 candidate in the March Senate by-elections, posted the following message on his Facebook wall on the International Day of the Fight against HOMOPHOBIA: "...on the level! Homosexuals do not bother me as long as they don't do anything offensive, but Gypsies certainly bother me completely!! even when they don't do anything offensive to piss people off - which basically doesn't exist!!! :-)))"
Kvapil then defended his racist opinions during a subsequent discussion when several Facebook users objected to the mayor's racism. He did not hesitate to continue to spread untrue rumors about the case of a death in Přerov. "The Gypsies in Přerov attacked and beat a boy at the train station after he complained they had cut in front of him in line. The boy succumbed to his injuries," Kvapil posted to Facebook on 12 May. In April police reported the incident in Přerov took place under completely other circumstances than those being described on the internet by racists.
Romea
Violent, racist attack on 12-year-old boy in Redditch (UK)
Police are hunting a man who attacked and racially abused a 12-year-old boy on a footpath in Redditch last night.
The boy was running on a path beside a stream off Needle Mill Lane on Thursday, May 19 at about 7pm when he was approached by a man near a footbridge.
The man punched him, threw him to the floor and then kicked him. During the assault he racially abused his victim and tried to throw him into the stream.
The boy managed to break free and ran for help. He was taken by ambulance to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch with cuts and bruising.
The offender was a white man described as around 30-years-old, of thin build with black, shoulder-length hair. He was wearing a grey sweat top and blue jeans.
PC Paul Lettis said: “This was a nasty and totally unprovoked attack by a stranger on a boy who was taking part in an organised run. We are carrying out inquiries in a bid to trace the offender and it is vital we hear from anyone who may have seen a man of this description in that area either before or after the incident.
“The smallest detail could be important to our investigation so if you saw or heard anything, or have any suspicion as to who might be responsible, then please get in touch.”
Witnesses or anyone with information should call police at Redditch on 0300 333 3000, quoting incident reference 603-S-190511, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Rdditch Advertiser
The boy was running on a path beside a stream off Needle Mill Lane on Thursday, May 19 at about 7pm when he was approached by a man near a footbridge.
The man punched him, threw him to the floor and then kicked him. During the assault he racially abused his victim and tried to throw him into the stream.
The boy managed to break free and ran for help. He was taken by ambulance to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch with cuts and bruising.
The offender was a white man described as around 30-years-old, of thin build with black, shoulder-length hair. He was wearing a grey sweat top and blue jeans.
PC Paul Lettis said: “This was a nasty and totally unprovoked attack by a stranger on a boy who was taking part in an organised run. We are carrying out inquiries in a bid to trace the offender and it is vital we hear from anyone who may have seen a man of this description in that area either before or after the incident.
“The smallest detail could be important to our investigation so if you saw or heard anything, or have any suspicion as to who might be responsible, then please get in touch.”
Witnesses or anyone with information should call police at Redditch on 0300 333 3000, quoting incident reference 603-S-190511, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
Rdditch Advertiser
MEDIA COMPLICIT IN RISE OF XENOPHOBIA (Europe)
As European leaders increasingly question the concept of Europe without borders and follow each other in announcing the end of multiculturalism, the media response has been mostly to present migrants as destabilising Europe’s labour markets and welfare states.
The role of the media in the worsening image of migrants in Europe was debated in Budapest at a conference titled "Promoting Migrant Integration through Media and Intercultural Dialogue". The conference, organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union, ran from May 16-18, and was aimed at helping media representatives provide fair and balanced coverage of migration issues. With far-right, anti-immigration parties gaining strength throghout Europe, journalists have been signalled as frequent accomplices to rising xenophobia: "European public opinion is being pressed with the threat of a migration wave. Both politicians and journalists should recognise their mistakes," Czech sociologist Ivan Gabal told participants. Mircea Toma, president of Active Watch, a Romanian media monitory agency, mirrored a similar view: "Journalists often don’t look at events with an eagle eye, but rather with the same perspective as anyone in the population," he said. The increasing commercialisation of the mainstream media and the profit imperatives it imposes seem to be at the core of the lowering of quality in media coverage of migration related issues. "We certainly need some transparency rules to see where the funding is coming from and what are the political groups involved," Aidan White, former general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists told participants. "There is a crisis within the media, a financial crisis that is reducing the quality of training, of journalism, and ultimately journalists’ capacity to tell complex stories."
There is a harsh, competitive environment that is leading editors and journalists to violate codes of ethics. "If anti-immigration writing allows the media to stay in business, the media will go for it," Milica Pesic, executive director of the U.K.-based Media Diversity Institute warned. Still, blame should not be placed exclusively on the media, White said. "This is not just a problem of the media. Issues related to economic migration are complex, but lack of courage is leading to an unscrupulous form of politics. We are facing a general problem of societal anxiety about our healthcare, our education and our labour market." An anxiety which, participants agreed, has peaked with the Middle East revolts in general, and the Libyan crisis in particular. Since the beginning of what some have termed the ‘Arab Spring’, "no more than 30,000 people have arrived in Europe, but the reaction has been surprising," Kinga Goncz, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s LIBE Committee told the conference. "This is not a large number but from reading the media you would think it’s a huge number. There’s a paranoid fear that these people will overburden Europe, while actually some of the economies that are better recovering from the crisis, like Germany’s, require even more migrants," she said. The latest crisis has also underlined the ethnocentrism of European media. "Eight hundred thousand people, overwhelmingly migrant workers, have fled from Libya and gone mostly to Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Chad and Algeria. This indeed represents a migration crisis, but it is not affecting Europe yet," Jean- Philippe Chauzy, head of the IOM’s Media and Communication Unit told IPS.
The message was, however, not that media should portray migrants positively; instead speakers stressed the need to ensure balanced and accurate reporting. "Journalists have prejudices of their own," Pesic said. "It’s very important to know the facts, figures and sources, but even when they have them, some papers will go out of their way to mislead." Concerns over lack of journalistic ethic were shared by more than one state official: "Journalists often have an agenda, in the ministries we often provide them with correct, written information and they still write it wrong or put things out of context," Paulina Babis from the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Policy told IPS. Yet some questioned why journalists would even begin by approaching officials and not give voice to those who remain mostly voiceless: "Migrants and their organisations should speak for migrants, not government officials," White said. "Journalists will go to the easiest available source, they don’t have time for much else. What we need is an alternative sources handbook that should be made available to them," he suggested. Journalists, civic actors and international and state officials agreed the solution lies in increased cooperation between the media and other societal actors. "Migration is a complex and changing issue and journalists have less and less time to develop expertise. They don’t have the resources to cover an issue which requires a comprehensive understanding of the context," Chauzy said, speaking to IPS. "The present context is one of economic downturn and growing unemployment, which is leading to polarisation. That’s why the media should get all the information it needs: biased coverage is less acceptable in an era when access to information is a lot easier than at any other time in history," he said.
IPS Inter Press Services
The role of the media in the worsening image of migrants in Europe was debated in Budapest at a conference titled "Promoting Migrant Integration through Media and Intercultural Dialogue". The conference, organised by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the Hungarian Presidency of the European Union, ran from May 16-18, and was aimed at helping media representatives provide fair and balanced coverage of migration issues. With far-right, anti-immigration parties gaining strength throghout Europe, journalists have been signalled as frequent accomplices to rising xenophobia: "European public opinion is being pressed with the threat of a migration wave. Both politicians and journalists should recognise their mistakes," Czech sociologist Ivan Gabal told participants. Mircea Toma, president of Active Watch, a Romanian media monitory agency, mirrored a similar view: "Journalists often don’t look at events with an eagle eye, but rather with the same perspective as anyone in the population," he said. The increasing commercialisation of the mainstream media and the profit imperatives it imposes seem to be at the core of the lowering of quality in media coverage of migration related issues. "We certainly need some transparency rules to see where the funding is coming from and what are the political groups involved," Aidan White, former general secretary of the International Federation of Journalists told participants. "There is a crisis within the media, a financial crisis that is reducing the quality of training, of journalism, and ultimately journalists’ capacity to tell complex stories."
There is a harsh, competitive environment that is leading editors and journalists to violate codes of ethics. "If anti-immigration writing allows the media to stay in business, the media will go for it," Milica Pesic, executive director of the U.K.-based Media Diversity Institute warned. Still, blame should not be placed exclusively on the media, White said. "This is not just a problem of the media. Issues related to economic migration are complex, but lack of courage is leading to an unscrupulous form of politics. We are facing a general problem of societal anxiety about our healthcare, our education and our labour market." An anxiety which, participants agreed, has peaked with the Middle East revolts in general, and the Libyan crisis in particular. Since the beginning of what some have termed the ‘Arab Spring’, "no more than 30,000 people have arrived in Europe, but the reaction has been surprising," Kinga Goncz, vice-chair of the European Parliament’s LIBE Committee told the conference. "This is not a large number but from reading the media you would think it’s a huge number. There’s a paranoid fear that these people will overburden Europe, while actually some of the economies that are better recovering from the crisis, like Germany’s, require even more migrants," she said. The latest crisis has also underlined the ethnocentrism of European media. "Eight hundred thousand people, overwhelmingly migrant workers, have fled from Libya and gone mostly to Tunisia, Egypt, Niger, Chad and Algeria. This indeed represents a migration crisis, but it is not affecting Europe yet," Jean- Philippe Chauzy, head of the IOM’s Media and Communication Unit told IPS.
The message was, however, not that media should portray migrants positively; instead speakers stressed the need to ensure balanced and accurate reporting. "Journalists have prejudices of their own," Pesic said. "It’s very important to know the facts, figures and sources, but even when they have them, some papers will go out of their way to mislead." Concerns over lack of journalistic ethic were shared by more than one state official: "Journalists often have an agenda, in the ministries we often provide them with correct, written information and they still write it wrong or put things out of context," Paulina Babis from the Polish Ministry of Labour and Social Policy told IPS. Yet some questioned why journalists would even begin by approaching officials and not give voice to those who remain mostly voiceless: "Migrants and their organisations should speak for migrants, not government officials," White said. "Journalists will go to the easiest available source, they don’t have time for much else. What we need is an alternative sources handbook that should be made available to them," he suggested. Journalists, civic actors and international and state officials agreed the solution lies in increased cooperation between the media and other societal actors. "Migration is a complex and changing issue and journalists have less and less time to develop expertise. They don’t have the resources to cover an issue which requires a comprehensive understanding of the context," Chauzy said, speaking to IPS. "The present context is one of economic downturn and growing unemployment, which is leading to polarisation. That’s why the media should get all the information it needs: biased coverage is less acceptable in an era when access to information is a lot easier than at any other time in history," he said.
IPS Inter Press Services
Andrew Brons breaks ranks (BNP News, UK)
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| Andrew Brons Right |
Andrew Brons, the BNP’s Yorkshire & Humber MEP, has finally publicly broken ranks with Nick Griffin in a sign that could eventually lead to a split in the party. Brons has tried to appear neutral in the ongoing feuds that have engulfed the BNP over the past year but privately he has long taken the view that either Griffin has to go or a new party should be created.
Speaking on a nationalist website a couple of days ago, Brons announced that unless the current leadership has a complete change of heart and reforms the constitution he will be supporting Richard Edmonds’s leadership challenge.
Of course Brons does not believe a successful leadership challenge is likely, not least because Griffin has a knack of suspending or expelling any opposition to him. Even if it were, many do not believe that the BNP is a viable operation any more given the size of its debts. He does, however, believe that a strong challenge, which is likely to be met by a further crackdown by Griffin, could split the party.
There have been rumours about Brons launching a new far-right party for some time but the Yorkshire & Humber MEP has dithered for so long that some of his previous supporters have already left and joined the English Democrats.
Brons is a hardline racial nationalist and so there is no way he would follow the others into the English Democrats, but he has been desperate not to be the person who brings down the BNP. Rather, he hoped, the election results would be so terrible – which they were – and the debts so crippling that party members would turn to him as a saviour.
I’ve written a long article on all this in the new issue of Searchlight, which also carries our analysis of the 2011 election campaign. You can get the magazine here: https://www.hopenothate.org.uk/subscribe/
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