Tag: racism

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NEW ‘BROWN BOOK’ DOCUMENTS PREJUDICE AND HATE

On the occasion of the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published the ‘Brown Book’ – documentation of racist, xenophobic and homophobic crimes and acts of discrimination in Poland in the years 2020-2023.

The long-time author of the ‘Brown Book’ was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, social justice activist and poet. He was the mind behind social campaigns promoting respect and diversity. 20 March marks the ninth anniversary of his death.

The United Nations General Assembly established 21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in 1966 to commemorate the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa. On this day in 1960, police opened fire on Black people protesting against apartheid. Sixty-nine protesters were killed and one hundred and eighty were injured. The tragic anniversary is commemorated all over the world to express opposition to racism, discrimination, and xenophobia.

The latest edition of the ‘Brown Book’ on more than 300 pages describes cases of physical assaults on the basis of skin colour, language, or religion, as well as acts of verbal aggression. In addition, the report documents street demonstrations with slogans inciting hatred, acts of discrimination against minorities, and fascist banners displayed at football stadiums. Examples of hostility towards refugees from Ukraine can also be found therein.

– ‘In the Brown Book we paid a lot of attention to online hate speech, including the widely disseminated anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories, disinformation, and direct abuse against Ukrainians’, said Dr. Anna Tatar, co-author of the report.

– ‘The Brown Book documents negative social attitudes towards minority groups. In this edition of the report, we have described, among other things, attacks on people of Asian origin as well as other minorities who were accused of spreading Covid-19’, said Jacek Dziegielewski from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

Selected examples of events documented in the ‘Brown Book 2020-2023’:

SZCZECIN. In mid-March 2020, unknown perpetrators devastated a plaque with an inscription commemorating the Jewish residents of the city who were murdered during World War II in the Belzec extermination camp. Someone painted a swastika and the SS symbol on the plaque.

LUKOW. On 19 March 2020, three pupils of a local elementary school attacked a fifty-nine-year-old Vietnamese-born resident of the town. They shouted insults, including ‘She comes from China and has coronavirus’, ‘F*ck off you slut!’, and ‘Get the f*ck out of here, you whore, you f*cking Chinese woman!’ The perpetrators hurled stones and litter at her, spat in her direction, and one of them pushed her.

GDANSK. On 20 June 2020, an unidentified assailant attacked a man of Egyptian origin. He yelled at him, ‘Get out from here, you black w*ore’ and punched him in the face. He also tried to stab him with a knife.

WARSAW. On 17 February 2021, a gay couple was attacked. The assailant shouted, ‘Stop holding hands, children are watching’ at the men and stabbed one of them in the back with a knife. The injured man was hospitalized.

POZNAN. On 14 March 2021, on a tram one of the passengers made threats and racist insults towards a Guatemalan man travelling with his wife and child.

SZCZECIN. On 12 December 2021, Konfederacja (Confederation, far-right party) organised a ‘Shooting Competition named after Kyle Rittenhouse’ (Kyle Rittenhouse shot two participants of Black Lives Matter protests in the USA in 2020). The poster announcing the competition contained an image of Rittenhouse with a machine gun and a Confederate flag, a symbol of racial discrimination.

SEDZISZOW MALOPOLSKI. On 13 January 2022, a resident of the town brutally beat a homeless man. He punched him in the face twice, and when the victim fell to the ground, he kicked him unconscious in the head, causing numerous injuries. As a result of this attack, Slawomir K. died after spending several days in hospital.

BIALYSTOK. On 15 January 2022, during the demonstration of COVID-19 deniers, its participants chanted, ‘This is Poland and not Polin!’ (the word means Poland in Hebrew; for the extreme right it has become synonymous with the alleged rule of Jews over Poland).

KATOWICE. On 9 June 2022, at a bus stop and on the bus an unidentified man attacked a teenage boy from Ukraine. He threatened him and hurled xenophobic slurs at him.

LUBLIN. On 30 August 2022, three Black students were attacked by a group of several men. The attackers shouted ‘Black c*nts’ and punched them repeatedly.

WARSAW. On 24 September 2022, the streets of Warsaw witnessed the protest march under the slogan ‘Stop Ukrainization of Poland’, organised by Konfederacja Korony Polskiej (Confederation of the Polish Crown), a far-right party headed by Member of Parliament Grzegorz Braun. The participants unfurled banners ‘This is Poland and not Ukropol!’ (a conspiracy theory claiming that Poland is being overtaken by Ukrainians) and ‘Stop replacing the ethnic structure of Poland’.

LUBLIN. On 7 January 2023, two men attacked a Ukrainian woman, her 13-year-old son and her pregnant daughter. They shouted at them, ‘Ukrainian wh*res’, ‘F*ck Ukrainians’, ‘Get the hell out of Poland’. When the boy tried to call the police, they knocked him to the ground and punched him on the head. They also pushed the pregnant woman. They were charged with publicly insulting the Ukrainian citizens, making death threats, and using violence.

POZNAN. On 7 March 2023, activists of Mlodziez Wszechpolska (All-Polish Youth, a far-right organisation) disrupted a meeting with Ukrainian writer Oksana Zabuzhko. They chanted ‘Poland is for us!’ Meetings with the writer were also disrupted by members of Mlodziez Wszechpolska on 21 November 2022 in Krakow and on 14 February 2023 in Warsaw.

GDANSK. On the night of 11/12 March 2023, two juvenile perpetrators painted a swastika on the entrance to the synagogue in Gdansk-Wrzeszcz. Three ‘K’ letters, which stand for Ku-Klux-Klan, also appeared on the façade.

In April 2022, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published a report entitled ‘Let’s Maintain Solidarity with Refugees’ about cases of discrimination and hate speech against Ukrainians, refugees, and ethnic minorities in Poland in the context of the ongoing war. In January 2023, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published a report on hate speech as well as antisemitic and anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories propagated on the Media Narodowe (National Media) online tv channel. After the report had been published, the channel was removed by YouTube.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organisation founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has monitored hate crimes and hate speech as well as campaigned against antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally.

From 1 March 2022 to 1 March 2023, data collection for the ‘Brown Book’ was supported by the Henryk Wujec Civic Fund. Henryk Wujec (1940-2020) was an activist of the Workers’ Defence Committee (KOR) in the 1970s, political prisoner in the 1980s, member of the International Auschwitz Council and civil society mentor.

‘Brown Book 2020-2023’ (full version of the report):

https://www.nigdywiecej.org//docstation/com_docstation/172/brown_book_2020_2023.pdf

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

https://twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

www.linkedin.com/company/never-again-association

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HATE SPEECH ON YOUTUBE DOCUMENTED IN A NEW REPORT

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published a report on hate speech, antisemitic and anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories propagated on the far-right Media Narodowe (National Media) YouTube channel, which receives subsidies from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The National Media channel has over 250,000 subscribers. It produces an average of 100-150 broadcasts per month, some of them have tens of thousands of views.

The publisher of the National Media is Stowarzyszenie Marsz Niepodleglosci (March of Independence Association), whose leader is Robert Bakiewicz, editor-in-chief of the National Media and the main organizer of the so-called Independence March, the big far-right march that takes place in Warsaw on Polish Independence Day every 11 November. Bakiewicz is a former leader of the fascist group Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny (National-Radical Camp, ONR).

In the years 2021-2022, Bakiewicz’s organizations (Independence March Squads, March of Independence and National Guard) received almost 5 million Polish zloty (1 million US dollars) from public funds, including over 198 thousand Polish zloty directly for the National Media.

– ‘Many minorities are regularly attacked on the National Media channel, including Jews, Muslims, refugees from Ukraine, and LGBT people,’ says Dr. Anna Tatar from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, co-author of the report. – ‘Such offensive contents clearly breach YouTube community standards and we expect YouTube to take action’ – said Jacek Dziegielewski, a researcher for ‘NEVER AGAIN’ who participated in the report’s preparation.

Since the first days of the Russian invasion, the National Media broadcasts have presented refugees from Ukraine as a threat (including ‘biological’ threat) to the Polish society, denied the Ukrainians’ right to preserve their own national identity (demanding that they ‘polonize’ themselves), and questioned the Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine. The head of the National Media, Robert Bakiewicz, already in 2021 warned against ‘Ukrainian immigration’, which in his view would lead to an ‘ethnic replacement’ in Poland.

In the report, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association also recorded numerous examples of antisemitic content disseminated by the National Media. Among them there were medieval accusations of blood libel (accusing Jews of murdering Christian children for ritual purposes) as well as claims that the Jews were behind the current war in Ukraine, falsified the history of the Holocaust for financial purposes, were guilty themselves of creating antisemitism, and finally that they wanted to appropriate Poland in order to build their own state under the name ‘Polin’ (Polin means Poland in Hebrew).

Here are examples of comments made on the National Media channel, which were noted in the report of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association:

– Radoslaw Patlewicz (the author of the book ‘Ritual murder in Rzeszow? A historical investigation’): ‘There is hard evidence that Jews used the blood of humans and animals primarily for medical purposes, as well as for ritual purposes. It is, of course, the paschal matzah and the so-called wine ritual accompanying the Seder dinner’ (18.01.2022),

– Piotr Strzembosz (the Faith and Action Association) on refugees from Ukraine: ‘After all, 500,000 people from a country torn by war, this could be the source of not only the COVID virus, but a number of other very dangerous things. If there is a state of war, people may have difficulty maintaining hygiene, they can transmit various parasites, here let’s not be afraid of that word’ (2.03.2022),

– Brunon Rozycki (a regular host on the National Media channel): ‘The depopulation of eastern Ukraine is favourable for Putin, for the Jews and perhaps the West’ (22.03.2022, within a week, this broadcast gained over 100,000 views on YouTube),

– Radosław Patlewicz: ‘The Jews almost expressly demand a de facto liquidation of Christianity, so what attitude should Christians feel toward the Jews […]? It can be said that the Jews are in some ways looking for trouble coming to them, that somebody could harm them’ (25.04.2022),

– Jan Bodakowski (a regular host on the National Media channel, a participant of extreme right-wing demonstrations for many years, and a candidate of the far right Confederation party in the 2019 parliamentary elections; he was not elected): about the symbol of the Russian invasion, the letter Z: ‘[this letter] does not appear in the Russian alphabet […] but it is very similar to a letter that in Hebrew and in Kabbalah means war. And it would also suit the theory that the Kabbalistic symbol of the war was visible on Russian tanks, the more so knowing Vladimir Putin’s very close relations with Jewish communities’ (10.07.2022),

– Robert Bakiewicz (editor-in-chief of the National Media channel): ‘Lies about Jedwabne [an anti-Jewish pogrom committed by Poles in 1941 – editor’s note] have to be straightened out. I am fully convinced that on the basis of the evidence that we already have today, it can be clearly stated that the murder was not committed by the Poles. […] What the Jewish community or Israel says about this issue confirms our belief that it is simply acting for the benefit of currently building the myth of this criminal behaviour of Poles, but also developing this entire religion of the Holocaust’ (8.07.2022),

– Tadeusz Matuszyk (in the 1980s an activist of the so-called ‘true Poles’ faction in the Solidarity movement): ‘For over a thousand years, the majority of Jews have been, are and will be mortal enemies of the Polish nation and state’ (13.10.2022).

***

‘Report on hate speech on the National Media (Media Narodowe) YouTube channel in the years 2021-2023’ (full version of the report – PDF)

UPDATE: After the publication of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s report, the YouTube channel Media Narodowe was removed from the platform.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally. It has actively participated in international civil society networks, including the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism (GAADHE) and the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH). It takes part in international projects to counter hate speech, Get The Trolls Out and SafeNet.

More information:

www.NeverAgainAssociation.org
www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ
www.linkedin.com/company/never-again-association

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DELETING RACISM

Poland’s largest ad platform OLX and the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have partnered together to monitor and delete sales of racist, fascist and antisemitic propaganda items. In the joint declaration, both sides commit to act in line with Polish and international law and in particular with the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination.

OLX is owned by the South African technological corporation Naspers.

In the first weeks of the partnership, OLX, acting on the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s recommendations, deleted 655 offers of neo-nazi gadgets, such as a lead plaque ‘celebrating Hitler’ and badges with Nazi SS symbols. Some of the deleted offers also featured extremely antisemitic books such as the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’ – the most popular antisemitic pamphlet of the 20th century, and ‘The Controversy of Zion’ (Strategy of Zion in Polish) by Douglas Reed, a Holocaust denier. Other deleted items included releases of Polish and foreign music bands that support nazism and racism.

According to Rafal Pankowski, Professor of Sociology at Collegium Civitas and co-founder of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association: – ‘It is symbolic that the first item to be deleted was a hoodie with a Celtic cross (an international symbol of white supremacy), a flag of the Confederacy (which fought to uphold slavery in the American Civil War), and a three-armed swastika used by the South African neo-nazi group Afrikaaner Resistance Movement (AWB).’

Members of this organisation fought against against the dismantling of racial segregation by committing terrorist attacks and murders. Janusz Walus, a Polish emigrant who murdered anti-apartheid activist Chris Hani in 1993, was a supporter of AWB.

Dr. Anna Tatar from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association said: – ‘As part of the partnership, NEVER AGAIN will support the OLX Group through expert consultations and provide recommendations on ways discrimination can be tackled. This involves trainings to educate employees on how to identify racist and fascist content.’ Together with organisations outside Poland, the association will also report similar content on OLX platforms in other countries, such as Romania and Hungary.

Phuthi Mahanyele-Dabengwa, Chief Executive Officer of Naspers South Africa voiced her support for the partnership between the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and OLX: – ‘Both Naspers here at home and OLX in Poland abhor and condemn any form of racism and xenophobia and any attempt to disseminate hate speech of any kind.’ She also added, ‘Our team in Poland has also been engaging with NEVER AGAIN and we welcome their commitment to fight racism and discrimination. NEVER AGAIN has been working with OLX to further identify (limited incidents of) content that break the rules and are listed on the platform.’

For a number of years now, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has also been in partnership with the large online sales platform Allegro to eliminate sales of fascist and racist propaganda items. On 21 March 2018, the International Day Against Racial Discrimination, the association became a partner in the Partnership to Protect Rights, created by Allegro. As a result of the partnership, between March 2018 and March 2021 the platform deleted 99 percent of items identified by ‘NEVER AGAIN’, which was over 12 thousand offers in total (the final decision to delete an auction is taken by Allegro based on its terms and conditions). Among those offers were replicas of SS medals, flags of the Third Reich, as well as CDs of neo-nazi bands and books promoting antisemitism and Holocaust denial.

Among the items removed from the Allegro site upon intervention by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association was a book entitled ‘The Way of a Nationalist’ by Tomasz Greniuch, who was, for a short time, director of the Wroclaw chapter of the state-sponsored Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). The book contains praise of fascist movements. The author refers to the antisemitic conspiracy theory, according to which a ‘world government’ was supposedly aiming to destroy Poles and Poland ‘in the time of Zionist triumph, when the idea of globalism presumes the enslavement of all the nations of the world into one superpower under the aegis of the world diaspora.’ Moreover, in his book Greniuch supports the Hitler salute: ‘We are not ashamed of our views, or of our tradition. To us the Roman salute, the greeting of the Aryan Europe, shown by raising the right arm in the direction of the sun is not a gesture meant to order beer.’ He also praises the Belgian SS officer Léon Degrelle, who was sentenced in absentia to the death penalty for his collaboration with Nazi Germany, and Corneliu Codreanu, creator of the Iron Guard, the Romanian fascist organization responsible for anti-Jewish pogroms.

Tomasz Greniuch was the leader of the fascist group National Radical Camp (ONR) in the Opole region of Poland. His many years of extremist activity have been documented by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association in the ‘Brown Book’, a publication which monitors hate speech and hate crimes. In 2005, Greniuch co-organized a march to commemorate the 1936 anti-Jewish pogrom in the town of Myslenice. A year later, he publicly gave a ‘Heil Hitler’ salute in a student club at Opole University. He was also the founder and co-organizer of the so-called Independence Day March in Warsaw. In 2016, the program of the international far-right music festival ‘Eagle’s Nest’ included a discussion meeting with Greniuch. In 2018, he was awarded the Bronze Cross of Merit by Polish President Andrzej Duda.

Since 2018, Greniuch worked in the Opole branch of the Institute of National Remembrance, becoming head of the branch in November 2019. In January 2021, he organized an exhibition glorifying the wartime Holy Cross Brigade of the far-right National Armed Forces (NSZ), which had openly collaborated with the German Nazis. In February this year, Greniuch was appointed as Director of the Wroclaw chapter of the Institute of National Remembrance. Following protests against his appointment, both in Poland and internationally, he resigned from the position.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism, racism and xenophobia. Since 2005, it has led the ‘Racism-Delete’ campaign, which has the objective of removing racist content from the internet. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a member of the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH). The Association also takes part in projects to counteract online hate speech including ‘Get the Trolls Out’ and ‘Open Code for Hate-Free Communication’.

Additional information:

www.nigdywiecej.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

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RACISM RETURNS TO THE STADIUMS

After a break in live-audience football games caused by the epidemic, racist slogans and banners have returned to stadiums. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted a surge in activity of those who use football to manifest their endorsement of Janusz Walus, a Polish-born far-right activist serving a life sentence for a racist murder in the Republic of South Africa.

During a top flight match between teams Lechia Gdansk and Legia Warszawa (15 July), hooligans from Gdansk again displayed a banner with Walus’s name and picture and the slogan ‘Nothing will break you, you’re not alone’ and faced no consequences. No disciplinary action was taken by the Polish football authorities despite this being yet another display of racist propaganda in the Lechia Gdansk stadium. The city authorities, who financially support Lechia and rent out the stadium in question, have also failed to react.

In 1993, Walus murdered Chris Hani, a Black politician who fought to end the apartheid in South Africa. The assassin was a member of racist organizations. He was sentenced to the death penalty, subsequently changed to a life sentence (capital punishment was abolished in South Africa in 1995). The murder, plotted by the far-right, was intended to start a civil war. The list of future potential victims of Walus included Nelson Mandela.

– ‘It is astounding that football hooligans can display support for a racist murderer at Polish stadiums unpunished. Slogans and flags bearing praise for Walus have been appearing on the stands for a couple of years now’ – comment representatives of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. – ‘After a short summer break matches will recommence on 22 August. Let’s hope things will change’.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ activists note that, in contrast to many sports clubs worldwide, Polish clubs have not supported the international anti-racist campaign Black Lives Matter. An exception was a fourth division club Polonia Sroda Wielkopolska – its players knelt on the pitch and thus honored the memory of George Floyd, a Black American killed by a police officer. Under a short note published on 5 June on Polonia’s Twitter profile, which included a picture of the footballers and an invitation to other clubs to join the campaign, almost all the comments were negative and vulgar, including: ‘whack yourselves in the head’, ‘I see you bambers [Poles who descended from Germans, now living in the Poznan area – translator’s note] are f.cked up’, ‘please untag Legia and don’t involve it in this pathology’, ‘don’t even try to include Lech Poznan in this sick campaign’, ‘go kiss n.gro’s shoes’, ‘you’re f.cked up. I hope that n.gros destroy your asses’, ‘F.ck, my city made such an embarrassment of itself’, ‘Shame for all of Sroda Wielkopolska and its inhabitants’.

‘NEVER AGAIN’ has led the ‘Let’s kick racism out of the stadiums’ campaign since the mid-1990s. Its originator was the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), the president of the Association for many years. The campaign aims to fight racism and discrimination in football. An important part of the campaign is monitoring racist incidents and informing the public about them.

In recent years and months, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association noted many banners and flags flown during matches, displaying praise for Janusz Walus. These were exhibited by hooligans from many clubs including Rakow Czestochowa, Chelmianka Chelm, Pogon Szczecin and Legia Warszawa, among others. A real scandal occured on 21 March 2019 during a UEFA European Championship qualification game in Vienna between the Austrian and Polish national teams. Polish hooligans associated with Wisla Plock displayed a banner calling for ‘Freedom for Janusz Walus’ with a photo of the murderer. The match was played on the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, proclaimed by the United Nations to commemorate victims of the racist apartheid system.

In Poland, sympathizers of extreme nationalism publicly support Walus also away from the context of sports, for example at street demonstrations. On 1 March 2020 in Bydgoszcz, a march to honor the memory of the so called ‘Cursed Soldiers’ (a group of anti-communist guerrillas which operated in Poland after 1945) was held and its participants carried banners saying: ‘Janusz Walus. The last of the Cursed Soldiers’ and ‘Death to the enemies of the homeland’ (a slogan calling for ideologically-motivated violence). The march was headed by the city council member Jerzy Mickus, a member of the Zawisza Football Association’s board (a local football club).

Another march took place on 18 July 2020 in Katowice, where participants, including members of the National Radical Camp (ONR), shouted out ‘Janusz Walus is our role model’, as well as ‘Death to the enemies of the homeland’ and ‘We will abolish democracy’. They also displayed banners with slogans: ‘It is ok to stay white’ and ‘National Cleansing Front’ along with the Celtic cross – a racist symbol. The demonstrators carried a flag with a Nazi symbol called the Black Sun.

The popularity of Walus is also expressed in gadgets sold on the internet. For example, on the Polish online sales platform OLX one can purchase fan stickers with the name of the murderer and slogans commending his actions. OLX belongs to a South African media and technological internet group, Naspers. For many years, the company had actively supported propaganda upholding the apartheid. However, sales of items praising Walus are being removed from another major online sales platform, Allegro (previously also owned by Naspers), thanks to the intervention of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

On 16 March 2020, the Minister of Justice of South Africa, Ronald Lamola, upheld the decision of his predecessor and denied Walus parole. Walus never expressed full remorse for his crime.

Polish members of parliament, tied to extremist nationalist circles, have campaigned for Walus’s release. In May 2016, MP Robert Winnicki (former leader of the far-right group All-Polish Youth and currently member of the Confederation party) filed a letter to the Minister of Foreign Affairs in which he demanded the Polish government take ‘appropriate steps to negotiate the immediate release of Janusz Walus’ and arrange his return to Poland. Similar requests calling for government intervention were submitted by other right-wing MPs, Tomasz Rzymkowski, Bartosz Jozwiak and Sylwester Chruszcz.

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:

www.neveragainassociation.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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THE MISSING PICTURE: RETHINKING GENOCIDE STUDIES AND PREVENTION

Members of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association were honoured by the invitation to speak at the global congress of the International Association of Genocide Scholars held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

The IAGS conference entitled ‘The Missing Picture: Rethinking Genocide Studies and Prevention’ gathered around 500 intellectuals, researchers, and civil society representatives from all over the world. It was held at the American University of Phnom Penh on 14-19 July 2019. A special meeting with the Oscar-nominated renowned Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh was a highlight of the conference programme.

During the conference, Natalia Sineaeva presented a paper on ‘Museums as Spaces for Dealing with Difficult Knowledge: Examples from Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia’, Rafal Pankowski spoke on ‘Polish Entries at Tuol Sleng in 1979 and the Issues of Polish-Cambodian Genocide Analogies’. Nickey Diamond, a friend of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ from Myanmar, presented the subject of ‘Securitization of Islam in Myanmar: Security Discourse Analysis on the Mass Atrocities against Rohingya Muslims’.

After the conference, Natalia Sineaeva, Rafal Pankowski and Ali Al-Asani conducted two full-day workshops in Phnom Penh under the heading ‘An Introduction to the History of the Holocaust’. The well-attended workshops (in English and Khmer languages) were co-organized by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ and the Heinrich Boell Foundation Cambodia and took place at the office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation on 23 and 27 July. Around fifty participants included Cambodian human rights activists, academics and students. The themes of genocide, resistance and dealing with the past were discussed alongside the parallels and differences between the tragic chapters of European and Asian histories.

– ‘We want to share our knowledge, but our aim is also to learn from our Cambodian friends, from their unique perspective and experiences’ – said Natalia Sineaeva, a ‘NEVER AGAIN’ member and International Rotary Peace Fellow 2018.

The activities in Cambodia illustrate the long-standing commitment of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association to support genocide commemoration and prevention, peace and intercultural dialogue both in Europe and in the region of Southeast Asia. Future Polish-Cambodian meetings, publications and other activities are planned, also in cooperation with the Cambodian diaspora.

Other international events with the participation of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association members and supporters are scheduled to take place over the next weeks and months in Thailand, South Korea and Japan.

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

More information:

www.nigdywiecej.org

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity

www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ