FACEBOOK FIRM ON HOLOCAUST DENIAL PAGES, DESPITE SURVIVORS’ LETTER

Facebook, citing free speech, has rejected a request by Holocaust survivors to remove some pages that espouse Holocaust denial. “We think it's important to maintain consistency in our policies, which don't generally prohibit people from making statements about historical events, no matter how ignorant the statement or how awful the event,” the popular social networking site said in response to a letter from Holocaust survivors dated July 8. Survivors and relatives of Holocaust victims wrote Facebook asking that the site change its policies permitting Holocaust denial before their aging generation is gone. The 21 survivors who signed the letter listed their concentration camps, ghettos and other Holocaust experiences below their names. “We, the undersigned, are Holocaust Survivors who saw our parents, children and loved ones brutally murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust,” the letter begins. “We are writing to you to protest Facebook’s policy that categorizes Holocaust denial as 'free speech,' rather than the shameless, cynical, and hateful propaganda that it is.”

The letter goes on to point out that not only are the Holocaust-denial sites offensive and hateful, but also could negatively influence scores of people due to Facebook’s popularity and accessibility. “By allowing this hate propaganda on Facebook, you are exposing the public and, in particular, youth to the anti-Semitism which fueled the Holocaust,” it says. The survivors who signed the letter are volunteers at the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles who speak there and at its Museum of Tolerance. Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the center's associate dean, criticized Facebook’s policy on Holocaust denial. "A review of denial sites currently active on Facebook confirms that it is not mere speech but that it constitutes at its core a platform for bigotry and hatred of Jews, dead and alive," said Cooper, who briefs online companies such as Facebook, Google and Yahoo on digital hate and terrorism. He added, “We will continue to urge Facebook officials to reflect on the pain and suffering their policy is causing victims of the Shoah. For these ageing heroes, every posting by deniers labels them, not victims of history's greatest crime, but liars and thieves.”

JTA

SWEDISH NAZIS HOLD TOWN FAIR RECRUITMENT DRIVE

A Swedish neo-Nazi movement conducted a recruitment drive at Kivik's annual fair in southern Sweden last week. "Unacceptable" according to the organizers, who have promised to tighten security for next year.

"This is absolutely not something we want to be associated with," Kivik fair organizer Tony Andreasson told The Local on Wednesday. The Swedish Resistance Movement (Svenska motståndsrörelsen - SMR) spent around three hours at the market, dealing out flyers and selling its newspaper "Nationellt Motstånd" (National Resistance). "They must have registered under another name. That is the only explanation. We have had trouble with groups like this before," Andreasson said. The group, which has been classified by the Swedish Security Service (Säpo) as "Sweden's greatest internal threat", boasts of the success of its recruitment drive on its homepage saying that "several debates" were held with fairgoers. "The activists... made contact with one person who wanted to join the freedom fight," the group wrote. Kivik fair is an annual event with a fairground and arund 1,000 market stalls selling produce from the region and elsewhere.

The fair attracts more than 100,000 visitors per year. Andreasson told The Local that two guards will be employed before next year's fair to ensure that the occasion is kept free from neo-Nazi groups. "We are the people who decide over Kivik fair. We want to have a serious family market just as we have done for the past 25 years," he said. The Local reported last week that SMR's newspaper had been reported for hate speech after it allowed a reader comment containing racial slurs to remain on the site.

The Local Sweden