Tag: NEVER AGAIN

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HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION AND COUNTERING GENOCIDE DENIAL IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

To mark the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, emphasise its universal significance and oppose its distortion, the NEVER AGAIN Association, together with its civil society partners and members in Southeast Asia, has co-organised a special online session on 27th January 2021. It brought together Jews, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians, intellectuals, faith leaders, human rights activists, educators and students from different countries and continents, with a special focus on the Southeast Asian region.

The online round table featured Jeremy Jones, the Director of Community and of International Affairs of the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (Australia); Venerable Lablu Barua, Wat Phrmarangsi Buddhist Monastery in Bangkok (Thailand); Sayana Ser, the translator of ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ in Khmer language, Peace Institute (Cambodia); Nickey Diamond, a scholar and human rights specialist at Fortify Rights (Myanmar); and Prof. Rafal Pankowski of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association (Poland). It was moderated by a member of ‘NEVER AGAIN’, Natalia Sineaeva, a Holocaust scholar and Rotary Peace Fellow alumna (Chulalongkorn University Bangkok 2018) and Dr Sanjoy Barua Chowdhury of the International Buddhist College (IBC) in Thailand.

The participants came from Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Germany, India, Israel, Malaysia, Myanmar, Norway, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, UK, USA, and Vietnam. They discussed the legacy of the Holocaust, challenges for its commemoration and the possible meaning of its commemoration in the region of Southeast Asia in relation to the region’s history and experiences of genocide and mass atrocities.

The United Nations General Assembly designated the International Holocaust Remembrance Day or International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust in 2005. The 27th of January marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland in 1945.

Natalia Sineaeva noted in her introductory remarks: – ‘Jews and Roma were mainly targeted for genocide by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, but its significance is universal. Today, when very few Holocaust survivors are left, we need to preserve this memory, and not let it be trivialised, banalised, or even worse, distorted and denied. How can we use and apply the universal lessons of the Holocaust which happened in Europe in a non-European context, where the experiences of the Second World War were different, for example in Southeast Asia? There is often a lack of knowledge of Holocaust history, but there are local histories of conflicts and instances of genocide, and various forms of genocide distortion exist, too.’

The online round table was the first in the series of further events to be organised for the project ‘Identifying and Countering Holocaust Distortion. Lessons for Southeast Asia’ implemented by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association together with its partners in the countries of Southeast Asia. The project deals with various forms of Holocaust distortion and denial spread in the region of Southeast Asia, e.g., the usage of Nazi imagery, normalisation of the image of Hitler and Nazi Germany in popular culture; conspiracy theories scapegoating minorities and blaming the victims (including the Jews) for past crimes and historical conflicts; the dangerous globalisation of genocide denial, including the rise of ‘multi-deniers’ who distort both the Nazi crimes and other cases of genocide, such as the crimes of the Khmer Rouge or anti-Rohingya violence. Importantly, the project draws on the regional experiences of the Second World War and further instances of genocide in Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand to inspire critical memory discourses and develop capacities to counter Holocaust and genocide distortion in the region. It has been supported by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism, racism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

Additional information:

www.neveragainassociation.org

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WATCH OUT – A NEW ANTI-FASCIST EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVE ONLINE

On the occasion of the International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism (9 November, the anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom), the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association announces the launch of an online educational initiative under the title ‘Watch Out’. It is a joint venture by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and the Forward Foundation supported by the European network for alternative thinking and political dialogue Transform! Europe.

As part of the project a set of materials directed at high school students was prepared. They include videos, presentations, worksheets and lesson outlines for teachers, NGO educators, scout leaders, organisers of youth camps and for students who want to broaden their knowledge. All the materials are also available in English and can be used all over the world.

The specially dedicated website http://kuprzestrodze.edu.pl/ publishes lectures by experts in the fields of history, sociology and social psychology, covering topics such as the psychology of Nazism, the fascist vision of family, the pedagogy of remembrance, genocide, and forced labour. Dr Jack Bloom (Indiana University Northwest, USA), Dr Michal Bilewicz (University of Warsaw, Centre for Research on Prejudice), Luiza Kulenkampff (Anne Frank Centre, Berlin) and Dr Rafal Pankowski (co-founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, Professor at Collegium Civitas, Warsaw) are among the lecturers involved in preparing the materials.

– ‘Today there are few eyewitnesses or victims of fascism among us, such as former concentration camp prisoners, and less time and space is dedicated to discussing these tragic events in schools. It’s becoming just another remote incident. The history should teach us, be a warning’ – say the project authors.

– ‘Recently the educational system comes under increasing ideological pressure from the far right. Our initiative is meant to be a response to the nationalist propaganda and indoctrination’ – said Rafal Pankowski from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

– ‘Our project is not over and the content will be constantly supplemented. We would like to invite institutions, organisations and individuals to join’ – added Dr Gavin Rae (Leon Kozminski Academy, Forward Foundation).

The Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass, also known as Reichskristallnacht or Reichspogromnacht in German) was a pogrom against the Jews in Nazi Germany on the night of 9 November 1938. It symbolised another wave of Nazi repressions against the Jews, which culminated in the Holocaust. For years the Kristallnacht anniversary has been commemorated as the International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism, racism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

Additional information:

www.neveragainassociation.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

 

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BLACK SKIN, WHITE MASKS

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a partner of the first ever Polish edition of Frantz Fanon’s seminal work ‘Black Skin, White Masks’.

Originally published in 1952, the book is among the key intellectual contributions to anti-racism and critical race theory. It has had a major influence on civil rights, anti-colonial, and Black rights movements around the world.

Frantz Omar Fanon (1925-1961) was a physician and psychiatrist as well as a radical humanist who inspired liberation movements across the world. Born on the Caribbean island of Martinique, he enlisted in the anti-Nazi Free French army during World War II. In the 1950s he partook in the anti-colonial movement in Algeria and died in the USA in 1961.

In the final passages of the book, Fanon wrote: ‘Superiority? Inferiority? Why not the quite simple attempt to touch the other, to feel the other, to explain the other to myself? Was my freedom not given to me then in order to build the world of the You? At the conclusion of this study, I want the world to recognize, with me, the open door of every consciousness.’

In the words of Leonardio Custodio, writing on the London School of Economics and Political Science web page: ‘Frantz Fanon’s classic Black Skin, White Masks is a book of enduring relevance. Fanon’s self-reflexive, philosophical, poetic, literary, arguably clinical and, above all, political analysis is still a powerhouse. It remains a fundamental part of the contemporary constellation of intellectual and activist struggles and discourses working to denounce and contest the effects of racism on the lives and minds of black people and people of colour.’

The first Polish edition of ‘Black Skin, White Masks’, translated by Urszula Kropiwiec, was published by Karakter publishing house and supported by the French Institute in Warsaw. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a partner of the publication.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization, it has campaigned against racism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

Additional information:

www.neveragainassociation.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

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SWEET TEA, BITTER LIFE

On the occasion of the Refugee Week 2020, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has launched a new video documentary on the plight of the Rohingya refugees from Myanmar under the title ‘Sweet tea, bitter life’ (SEE VIDEO).

The Rohingya refugees are survivors of the ongoing genocidal campaign conducted by the Myanmar military. They have been described by the United Nations as the world’s most persecuted ethnic minority.

The languages of the documentary are Rohingya, Polish and English (with English and Polish subtitles) and it is available freely on the Association’s YouTube channel. It was shot several weeks ago, shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in the world’s largest refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh, where approximately 1 million predominantly Muslim refugees from Myanmar are located.

According to the lead maker of the short documentary, Pawel Bolek, its aim was to show the human side of life in the refugee camp, which is largely unknown to the outside world. He says: – ‘The film shows that in our world everybody can suddenly, unexpectedly become a refugee’.

Previously, members of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ visited the refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar in November 2019. During the visit representatives of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Natalia Sineaeva and Rafal Pankowski met with refugees as well as medical personnel and civil society representatives.

Commemoration of genocide, empowering the victims of violence and the promotion of peace and non-discrimination will be among the subjects of a large-scale international event co-organized by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association member Natalia Sineaeva, the Global Cyber Peace Conference ‘Envisioning the World After the Great Pause’, held on 27 June.

The conference will last for 24 hours, starting from New Zealand through Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe, ending in the Americas/Caribbean. It will be an interactive online experience featuring speakers and attendees from around the globe. The conference is organized in cooperation with Rotary Peace Centres across the world, Mediators Beyond Borders International, and many other organisations. Almost forty sessions and workshops will be conducted across three conference zones: Asia/Oceania, Africa/Europe/Middle East, and the Americas/Caribbean. The conference themes include topics such as tackling identity-based violence, environment and peace, education and peace, and cultural resources for peace.

Natalia Sineaeva is the Europe regional coordinator for Rotary Peace Fellowship Alumni Association and she is a member of the conference leadership team for Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

During the event a special panel under the heading Cultural Resources for Peace: Peace Project Incubator will be devoted to the question: how do museums and memory sites deal with ongoing atrocities and war? The speakers include the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s Natalia Sineaeva as well as Shahriar Kabir, a renowned writer, filmmaker and human rights activist, President of the Forum for Secular Bangladesh & Trial of the War Criminals of 1971; Kornelis Spaans, a member of the International Committee of Memorial Museums in Remembrance of the Victims of Public Crimes of the International Council of Museums (ICOM); Tali Nates, the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre and chair of the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation; Naomi Kikoler, the director of the Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum; Mofidul Hogue, director of the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka, Bangladesh; and Haider Elias, the President of Yazda – Global Yazidi Organization.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association members and friends are also going to speak in several other sessions of the conference, one of the largest of its kind in recent history.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

Additional information:

Global Cyber Peace Conference registration: http://rpfaa.org/global-cyber-peace-conference/

www.neveragainassociation.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

‘Sweet tea, bitter life’ documentary:

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FAR-RIGHT MEDIA ATTACK ON ROBERT LEWANDOWSKI

A radical-right media outlet has attacked Poland’s top footballer Robert Lewandowski and promoted xenophobic conspiracy theories around the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Warsaw-based anti-racist ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has noted a recent broadcast on the ‘Idz Pod Prad’ (‘Go Against the Tide’) online television program which targeted Lewandowski. The channel regularly refers to the coronavirus as ‘the Chinese plague’ and promotes a conspiracy theory about its origin. Against scientific evidence, it accuses the Chinese of intentionally producing and spreading the virus. It advocates a military conflict with China and announces, in the words of its head Pawel Chojecki, ‘the war against the Chinese communists is starting to take shape’.

In this context, Robert Lewandowski was attacked for having participated in an advert for a popular Chinese smartphone brand. Chojecki has called for a boycott of Poland’s national team captain by fellow players and media: ‘It is shameful for our leading player, at the moment when a life and death war is underway against the criminals who have the blood of over 100 million people on their hands (…) Mr Lewandowski agrees to be a Europe-wide ambassador for the Chinese communists, it is a shame and a disgrace for the Polish sports, no Polish sportsman should shake hands with Mr Lewandowski and no Polish journalist should pay any attention to his utterances’.

Chojecki failed to mention that already in March this year, the Bayern Munich striker with his wife Anna donated one million Euro to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

In the same broadcast on 15 May, Chojecki attacked the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, Polish President Andrzej Duda, and Pope Francis who was labelled as ‘a heathen who celebrates Maoist Leninist rituals together with the communist comrades from China’.

‘Go Against the Tide’ is known for formerly employing Marian Kowalski, an ex-presidential candidate. Its founder Pawel Chojecki is a longtime political activist on the radical right and a vice-chairman of the 11 November Movement party. He is also the leader of a religious group called the New Covenant Church.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has recently published its latest REPORT ‘The Virus of Hate: Brown Book of the Epidemic’. The report documents acts of racism, xenophobia and discrimination which have occurred in the context of the coronavirus in Poland in recent weeks and months. The authors of the report recorded cases of assaults on members of minorities who are unjustly blamed for spreading the virus, as well as numerous examples of hate speech and conspiracy theories about the pandemic spread by the far right. They also noted some instances of xenophobia in the world of sports.

Rafal Pankowski, a co-author of the report of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and a sociology professor at the Collegium Civitas university, commented: – ‘The global pandemic is also a global crisis of social trust and values amid confusion and anxiety. It is fertile ground for the dangerous growth of xenophobia and conspiracy theories’.

– ‘Examples of hatred are unfortunately coming from the top. In a pandemic, conspiracy theories promoted by public figures: celebrities, artists, politicians, journalists and clergy are particularly alarming’ – adds Jacek Dziegielewski, also a co-author of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association report.

– ‘Companies such as YouTube and Facebook, contrary to their formal announcements, often tolerate such content on their platforms’ – said Dr. Anna Tatar, co-author of the ‘Brown Book’.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization, it has campaigned against racism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally. Since 1996, it has conducted the first anti-racism campaign in Eastern European football, ‘Let’s Kick Racism Out of the Stadiums’ and is a founding member of the Fare network.

‘The Virus of Hate: Brown Book of the Epidemic’ (full report in PDF).

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

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THE VIRUS OF HATE AND STEVE BANNON’S DECLARATION OF WAR

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has echoed the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ warning against ‘the tsunami of hate and xenophobia’ sparked by the coronavirus pandemic. The Warsaw-based organization has published its latest REPORT ‘The Virus of Hate: Brown Book of the Epidemic’. The report documents acts of racism, xenophobia and discrimination which have occurred in the context of the coronavirus in Poland in recent weeks and months.

The authors of the report recorded cases of assaults on members of minorities who are unjustly blamed for spreading the virus, as well as numerous examples of hate speech and conspiracy theories about the pandemic spread by the far right.

The descriptions collected on over 30 pages include the following events:

– On 1 March, during mass in the St. Michael Archangel church in Wroclaw Fr. Leonard Wilczynski, belonging to the Salesian order, stated in his homily that the COVID-19 pandemic is ‘God’s punishment for living in the sin of homosexuality’. He also added that the Chinese ‘are dirty, eat bats and dead fetuses’.

– On 25 March in Sosnowiec three men attacked a female of Chinese descent – a scientific worker of the Silesian University. The victim said: ‘They surrounded me, I was so afraid – even now I am trembling. They kept shouting «virus» and «China»’. She also added: ‘I do not feel safe here as a woman of Chinese descent’.

– On 8 April in Szprotawa local media reported that a security guard of the local supermarket refused a Ukrainian man entrance to the store on the grounds of his nationality. One witness to the event reported: ‘When the young man wanted to enter the store, the security guard asked him if he was Polish or Ukrainian. When he replied that he was Ukrainian, he was told that he could not go inside’. The employee’s xenophobic behaviour stemmed from the false belief that all persons of Ukrainian origin in the town were carriers of COVID-19.

– On 8 April, Radio Wnet in Warsaw presented its listeners with a special programme introducing a conspiracy theory pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, advocated by well-known British extremist, David Icke. According to Icke, the responsibility for the pandemic rests with a secret global group, described as a ‘cult’, with which ‘madmen from Silicon Valley’, the World Health Organization, the British heir to the throne Prince Charles, and entrepreneur Bill Gates are connected.

– In the second half of April in Poznan, in the middle of the night, unknown perpetrators smashed the windows of a flat occupied by a Filipino man, who has been living in Poland for ten years. A report about it was broadcast on 23 April on the television channel, TVN24, and that night, there was a second attack on the flat, with stones once again being thrown. According to the victim, both attacks were associated with the COVID-19 epidemic and hostility towards people of Asian origin. ‘Some Filipinos experience incidents of people shouting «corona!» after them on the streets. One of the Filipinos was spat in the face and called «Chinese». We are very afraid’ – he said.

– On April 25 Grzegorz Braun, a Member of Parliament representing the Confederation party, shared his views on the pandemic in an interview on YouTube: ‘Jew-communists are trying to use the coronavirus to get rid of Trump […]. Bill Gates is heading for a situation in which each person on this globe will need to legitimise  his or her existence with a certificate of kosher standard’. On 6 May, during a speech in the Polish Parliament, Braun made threats of death by hanging to the Minister of Health, Lukasz Szumowski, in reaction to sanitary measures introduced in the preceding weeks in connection with COVID-19. On 8 May in Warsaw Braun together with Piotr Rybak (who had been convicted for publicly burning an effigy of a Jew in Wroclaw in 2015) participated in skirmishes with the police during a protest against sanitary restrictions imposed to combat the epidemic.

– On 9 May, TVP Info, a Polish state-run television channel, broadcast a thirty-minute conversation with Steve Bannon, an idol of the international alt-right movement and former advisor to Donald Trump. Bannon presented an ideological conspiracy theory on the COVID-19 pandemic, using military rhetoric. He stated: ‘This is really a serious matter, and I think that every leader in every country in the world should listen when the commander in chief of the US Armed Forces [the President] says that we have been attacked just like at Pearl Harbour and this time the Chinese are responsible. […] The real dark days are ahead, […] now they are turning to a kinetic type of war. […] This was like an order of assassination. The death of each person, each nurse, each doctor can be blamed on the Chinese Communist Party’.  He also added a confrontation with China was inevitable and said: ‘This is our goal, our destiny’.

According to the research carried out in April 2020 by the Centre for the Study of Democracy at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, as many as 45 percent of Poles believe in conspiracy theories alleging that ‘some foreign forces or countries intentionally spread the coronavirus’ and only 42 percent recognize its natural origin confirmed by scientific knowledge.

Rafal Pankowski, a co-author of the report of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and a sociology professor at the Collegium Civitas university, commented: – ‘The global pandemic is also a global crisis of social trust and values amid confusion and anxiety. It is fertile ground for the dangerous growth of xenophobia and conspiracy theories. For the first time in Polish history we are dealing with such a wave of hatred against people of Asian origin, but the antisemitic stereotypes are also present, together with hostility and contempt for various other groups – for example Roma, Africans, Ukrainians, Americans, Russians, as well as Muslims, refugees, LGBT people, environmentalists, vegans, and others’.

– ‘Unfortunately, the media are also involved in promoting conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, often inviting people with extreme views as experts. These «experts» are also gaining popularity on the web, where antisemitic and xenophobic content is distributed on a massive scale. Companies such as YouTube and Facebook, contrary to their formal announcements, often tolerate such content on their platforms’ – said Dr. Anna Tatar, co-author of the ‘Brown Book’.

– ‘Examples of hatred are unfortunately coming from the top. In a pandemic, conspiracy theories promoted by public figures: celebrities, artists, politicians, journalists and clergy are particularly alarming’ – adds Jacek Dziegielewski, also a co-author of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association report.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, both in Poland and internationally. Among others, it is a member of the International Network against Cyber Hate (INACH), which brings together organizations from twenty countries fighting hatred and discrimination on the Internet. Together with partners from Estonia, Slovakia, Romania and Spain, it conducts research on hate speech as part of the Opcode: Open Code for Hate-Free Communication project.

‘The Virus of Hate: Brown Book of the Epidemic’ (full report in PDF): https://bit.ly/2Z4EO20

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity 

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

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AN APPEAL FOR SOLIDARITY DURING THE EPIDEMIC

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is appealing for solidarity with all those who have suffered violence and discrimination because of their origins or ethnicity in connection with the coronavirus epidemic in the past days and weeks.

 

Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have documented cases such as the aggressive behaviour towards students from China from Polish students of the Gdansk University of Physical Education and Sport or the brutal beating of a Chinese-born cook who has lived in Wroclaw (Poland) for 25 years. In Warsaw, a group of young men and women shouted ‘coronavirus’ in the faces of three young Vietnamese women studying at the Polish university Collegium Civitas. Three teenagers in the Polish town of Lukow attacked a Vietnamese woman living there. They shouted ‘you are from China’, ‘you have coronavirus’, ‘get the f.ck out of here you Chinese slut!’, threw garbage at her, spat in her direction and when she tried to walk away, they followed her. Similarly, people belonging to other minorities have been experiencing xenophobia. For example, many hostels have used the new health regulations as a reason for insisting that all non-Polish nationals, mainly Ukrainians, vacate their rooms immediately. Xenophobic comments and conspiracy theories are becoming increasingly common on the internet.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ has noted similar acts of hostility towards people of Asian origin occurring in other countries all over the world, including France, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and the USA. The victims have suffered physical and verbal abuse. Examples include: in Berlin (Germany) two women brutally beat up a Chinese woman who then needed hospital treatment for head wounds. In Bologna (Italy) four people attacked a 15 year old boy of Chinese origin. They kicked his whole body shouting ‘What are you doing in Italy? Get out! You are spreading disease.’ In Brussels (Belgium) near the Southern railway station, an attacker punched a man of Asian origin in the face. In London (UK) a Singaporean man was punched in the face while the perpetrator shouted at him: ‘I don’t want your coronavirus in my country.’ In the USA, one of the passengers on the New York subway attacked a man of Asian origin demanding that he leave the train, hurling insults and spraying him with an unknown substance. On a San Francisco bus an elderly lady verbally abused a 14 year old girl, accusing the Chinese of spreading the virus.

-‘The virus of racism and hatred can be as dangerous as the coronavirus’ – states the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. -‘In difficult times, we need global solidarity and cooperation to meet the common global challenges more than ever.’

On 21 March 1960, in Sharpeville (South Africa) the police shot 61 peaceful demonstrators who were protesting against the racist system of apartheid. The United Nations General Assembly declared a Week of Solidarity with the People Struggling Against Racism and Racial Discrimination beginning on 21 March.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, both in Poland and internationally.

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ 

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‘NEVER AGAIN’ WELCOMES ICJ RULING ON MYANMAR GENOCIDE AHEAD OF INTERNATIONAL HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE DAY

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has welcomed the International Court of Justice ruling on the case concerning genocide against the Rohingya minority committed in Myanmar (Burma).

The ICJ, based in The Hague (Netherlands), ruled on 23 January that Myanmar must protect the Rohingya population. The court ordered Myanmar to take emergency measures to prevent genocide against the Rohingya.

Co-founder of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Rafal Pankowski was present in The Hague on the day of the ruling. He said: – ‘We welcome the ICJ decision and hope justice for the Rohingya will be delivered. Myanmar’s greatness is to be found in her diversity and the Rohingya must be treated with respect, their rights as citizens must be fully restored, their suffering must be recognized and compensated. Symbolically, the ICJ ruling was announced just days before the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 27th January, the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Genocide and genocide denial must not be ignored by the international community.’

The Rohingya have been described by the United Nations as the world’s most persecuted ethnic minority.

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Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association had visited Myanmar in solidarity with the local human rights activists in August 2018. In November 2019, representatives of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Rafal Pankowski and Natalia Sineaeva visited the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazaar (Bangladesh). During the visit, representatives of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ met with refugees as well as medical personnel and civil society representatives.

Also on 23 January, in the run up to the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s representative Anna Tatar delivered a keynote speech at a conference on ‘The Rise of Hate Crimes and the Role of Youth in Countering Them’, co-organized with Warsaw’s Collegium Civitas university and the Youth for Peace student group under the heading ‘Varsovians against Violence’. Students coming from numerous countries and continents demonstrated their solidarity with the victims of hate crimes and hate speech in Poland and elsewhere.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

More information:

www.neveragainassociation.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

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‘BROWN BOOK’ – A MEMENTO

To mark the International Human Rights Day, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has published a new edition of the ‘BROWN BOOK’, which constitutes documentation of hate crimes, racist and xenophobic incidents. This report collects acts of violence and examples of extremist hate speech in Poland in 2019.

– ‘Memory of the tragic past obligates us to take responsibility for words, especially in the age of the internet and its unlimited range’ – said Dr. Anna Tatar from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, the main author of the ‘Brown Book’. She added, ‘In this monitoring project we note numerous cases of language used in order to incite hatred against entire groups. This propaganda is conducive to physical aggression’.

In the ‘Brown Book’, during the last few months the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted numerous acts of violence against people belonging to sexual minorities in particular. Contempt for these people manifests itself in public announcements of politicians and journalists, as well as members of the clergy. In recent elections to the Sejm (the Polish Parliament), seats were won by extreme-right activists under the banner of the Confederation (Konfederacja) group, which demands punishments such as ‘flogging’ for homosexuality (Grzegorz Braun), announces ‘kicking out of LGBT from Polish public space’ (Robert Winnicki), or ‘slaughtering of those elite groups which promote deviancy’ (Janusz Korwin-Mikke).

The ‘Brown Book’ documents selected incidents from 2019, such as: beatings, damage to cemeteries and monuments dedicated to minorities, extreme nationalist demonstrations, racist and homophobic insults, cases of hate speech in the media, and acts of discrimination, as well as ideologically motivated signs of hostility towards minority groups. The list also includes examples of incidents in which football fans took part, amongst other acts, the unfurling of racist and xenophobic flags in stadiums, or shouting offensive slogans during football games.

Some of the many incidents documented in the ‘Brown Book’ include:

On a Warsaw municipal public transport bus, two men attacked a sixteen-year-old high school student for homophobic reasons. (Zabki near Warsaw, 3rd January).

A group of assailants shouted xenophobic abuse and assaulted a citizen of Ukraine who was an employee of a transport company. During a taxi ride, they demanded that the driver change the music to ‘disco polo’. When he refused, they stated that he ‘does not respect the country, to which he came’, abused him verbally, and shouted ‘You f…ing Ukrainian, go back to where you came from,’ (Warsaw, the night of 8th March).

One resident of a housing complex attacked his neighbour for homophobic reasons. He shouted, ‘You faggot!’, and punched him in the face with his fist (Warsaw, 14th March).

Unknown perpetrators damaged a plaque commemorating Jews murdered by the Nazi Germans during World War Two. Two swastikas were painted on the stone plaque (Otwock, 6th April).

Residents of the town of Pruchnik took part in a rite known as the ‘hanging of Judas’ which has antisemitic undertones. They dragged an effigy through the streets, flogged it with sticks, and finally set fire to the huge straw doll, which resembled a stereotypical Orthodox Jew (Pruchnik, April 19).

On the wall of a Jewish cemetery, someone painted a set of gallows with the word ‘Jude’ (Jew in German) hung from them (Oswiecim, 21st April).

Two men attacked a black student from the United States who was participating in a Holocaust research tour (Warsaw, 30th May).

In an elementary school, an eleven-year-old pupil with Asperger’s Syndrome, was harassed. The school principal as well as one teacher reportedly humiliated her, derided her, called her names, and threatened her (Szynkielow, 11th June).

An unidentified man used racist name-calling and brutally attacked a citizen of India (Aleksandrow Lodzki, 21st June).

A man attacked a woman wearing a hijab and her three-month-old baby. He shouted: ‘Get the f…ck out, you dirty people,’ and made the gesture of the fascist ‘Heil Hitler’ salute, shouting ‘White power!’ (Rzeszow, 2nd August).

Four assailants mugged and verbally abused an employee of a kebab bar who was a citizen of Bangladesh (Lodz, night of 21st September).

A parking attendant attacked a citizen of Egypt for racist reasons. He shouted at him, ‘F…k off from our country’ (Lodz, 15th October).

The initiator and creator of the ‘Brown Book’ for many years was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), the founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. Its title was inspired by the history of anti-Nazi resistance. This documentation has continued for over twenty years, and has earned international recognition as the most reliable and independent source of information related to xenophobic violence in Poland.

In 2019, the ‘Brown Book’ has won the support of the Citizens Fund, governed by the Fund for Poland under the honorary patronage of Adam Bodnar, the Human Rights Commissioner (Ombudsman). In 2018 he received the Norwegian Thorolf Rafto Prize, awarded for championing human rights and independent judiciary in Poland. In accordance with the wishes of Adam Bodnar, this prize was donated to the Citizens Fund to promote human rights activism in Poland.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organisation established in Warsaw in 1996. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has campaigned against racism, antisemitism, and xenophobia, both in Poland and internationally.

The selection of racist and xenophobic incidents for 2019, documented in the ‘Brown Book’ can be found in: https://www.nigdywiecej.org//docstation/com_docstation/172/brown_book_2019.pdf

More information:

www.neveragainassociation.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

 

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‘NEVER AGAIN’ ACTIVE IN BANGLADESH

Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association participated in the international conference ‘Genocide and Justice with a special focus on the Rohingya persecution’ held at the Liberation War Museum in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. They also participated in meetings in other Bangladeshi cities.

The conference was opened by the Foreign Minister of Bangladesh Dr A.K. Abdul Momen and attended by academics and activists from the countries of South Asia and beyond.

It took place on 16-18 November 2019. The discussions covered a broad spectrum of topics related to genocide and human rights.

In her speech during the concluding ceremony Natalia Sineaeva remembered the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto. She stressed: – ‘It is our task, genocide scholars, museum workers, and human rights activists to apply the experience of the past atrocities to prevent future violence and to address contemporary examples of human rights violations.’ Natalia Sineaeva (who is a Rotary Peace Fellow Alumni and IEP Peace Ambassador) was also a panelist during a conference session on ‘Ensuring Justice through Art Forms and Memorialisation’ where she presented several case studies of genocide museums and memory sites in Europe and Asia.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association co-founder and Collegium Civitas Professor Rafal Pankowski provided a presentation entitled: ‘The Holocaust in Poland and Genocide in Asia: Does the Tragic Past Bring Us Closer?’ Among other things, he highlighted the current ‘White Rose’ initiative of Buddhist Burmese youth in solidarity with the persecuted Muslims in Myanmar. It was apparently inspired by the anti-Nazi resistance group under the same name during the Third Reich.

Ven. Thirasattho Bhikkhu Lablu Barua, a Buddhist scholar and peace activist based in Thailand (a PhD candidate at the Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University and an IEP Peace Ambassador) who is a longtime friend of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association‎ also actively participated in the conference discussions. He emphasized the importance of intercultural understanding and awareness in addressing conflict and warned against the frequent manipulation of religion by extremist propaganda.

Moreover, members of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ partook in a number of meetings with Bangladeshi‎ intellectuals and community leaders discussing future cooperation. It included a meeting with Shahriar Kabir, the president of the Forum for Secular Bangladesh and Trial of War Criminals of 1971 and general secretary of the South Asian People’s Union against Fundamentalism & Communalism. The veteran writer, journalist and film maker reminisced how the knowledge about the Holocaust and World War II in Poland inspired him in his quest for justice for the victims of the 1971 genocide in Bangladesh.

The representatives of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ also joined in an activity organized by Mohra Century Morning Friends – a unique project in the southern city of Chittagong bringing together members of the Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and Christian communities of all ages through joint sports and music activities‎ in a region threatened by communal strife and conflict.

Importantly, members of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ visited one of the world’s largest refugee camps located in the region of Cox’s Bazaar‎ near the border between Bangladesh and Myanmar. The Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are survivors of the ongoing genocidal campaign conducted by the Myanmar military. They have been described by the United Nations as the world’s most persecuted ethnic minority. Bangladesh accepted almost one million Rohingya refugees in the recent years. During the visit, representatives of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ met with refugees as well as medical personnel and workers of humanitarian organizations. They talked about the most pressing needs and challenges of life in the camp as well as ways to express solidarity.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent organization established in Warsaw in 1996. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has campaigned against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

More information:

www.neveragainassociation.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ