Tag: Hitler

Opublikowane w

A CLEANUP OF ANTISEMITIC PROPAGANDA ONLINE

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has managed to remove more than 3,500 items with fascist and antisemitic content through its cooperation with the major online sales platform Allegro. These included numerous copies of contemporary editions of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ without critical commentary as well as books by David Irving, a rabidly antisemitic pseudo-historian who has denied the existence of gas chambers in Auschwitz and the extermination of six million Jews during World War II.

 Irving calls Auschwitz a ‘Disneyland’. For peddling such ideas in public, in 2006 he was sentenced to prison by a court in Austria. In 2007, thanks to an intervention by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, he was removed from the International Book Fair in Warsaw. In September 2019, Irving with a group of followers planned another ‘sightseeing trip’ through the former death camps. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that his theories are unacceptable under the Polish law and he would not be allowed to enter Poland.

– ‘Upon our recommendations, Allegro removes such items, even though new ones continue to pop up and need to be removed, too; this requires much effort and commitment,’ said a member of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ team Jacek Dziegielewski. Dr Anna Tatar, also a ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association representative, adds: ‘The final decision on removal is always taken by Allegro, but in almost all the cases our interventions were successful. We have formed a partnership which allows us to counter racist and fascist propaganda very effectively. And we are talking about the biggest internet sales platform in the region of Central and Eastern Europe, with more than 21 million registered users, at a time of a general growth of antisemitic and racist hate speech in our society.’

The offers reported by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ included newly-made Third Reich flags and SS uniforms, records with Nazi music, lighters with an image of Hitler, or pendants with Mussolini.

Moreover, in cooperation with ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Allegro removed books by SS officer Leon Degrelle who praised Hitler after the war and denied the Holocaust, by Hennecke Kardel who claimed that the Jews themselves were responsible for the Holocaust, and publications glorifying the Iron Guard, a Romanian fascist group who murdered many Jews.

The legal basis for deleting the auctions are Articles 256 and 257 of the Polish Penal Code together with the provisions in Appendix No. 1 to the Allegro Code of Conduct. In 2018, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association became a partner to Allegro’s programme of ‘The Rights Protection Cooperation’ and since then helps eliminate offensive content from the platform.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization established in Warsaw in 1996. 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.

Additional information:

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

Opublikowane w

ANTYSEMICKIE PUBLIKACJE ZNIKAJĄ Z ALLEGRO

Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ we współpracy z Allegro usunęło już ponad 3500 aukcji o treści faszystowskiej i antysemickiej. Wśród nich znalazły się liczne aukcje ze współczesnymi wydaniami ‘Mein Kampf’ Hitlera bez komentarza krytycznego, a także publikacje Davida Irvinga – skrajnego antysemity, który od lat zaprzecza istnieniu komór gazowych w Auschwitz i Zagładzie sześciu milionów Żydów w czasie II wojny światowej. 

Irving nazywa ekspozycję w muzeum oświęcimskim ‘czystym Disneylandem’, gdzie ‘Polacy i inni zepsuli to miejsce przez chęć generowania pieniędzy i propagandy’. Za publiczne propagowanie takich tez został skazany w 2006 roku przez austriacki sąd na karę więzienia. W 2007 roku dzięki współpracy ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ i dyrekcji Muzeum Auschwitz-Birkenau został usunięty z terenu Międzynarodowych Targów Książki w Warszawie. We wrześniu 2019 roku Irving wraz z grupą swoich zwolenników planował kolejną ‘wycieczkę objazdową’ po byłych obozach zagłady. Już w marcu Ministerstwo Spraw Zagranicznych RP poinformowało, że ze względu na to, iż głoszone przez niego poglądy są niedopuszczalne z punktu widzenia polskiego prawa, nie zostanie wpuszczony do kraju.

– ‘Allegro po naszej rekomendacji usuwa takie oferty, wciąż pojawiają się nowe i również są sukcesywnie usuwane, takie działanie wymaga konsekwencji i wytrwałości’ – powiedział Jacek Dzięgielewski ze Stowarzyszenia ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’. Dr Anna Tatar z ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ dodaje: – ‘Ostateczną decyzję o usunięciu aukcji każdorazowo podejmuje firma Allegro, w zdecydowanej większości przypadków nasze interwencje były skuteczne. Udało nam się wypracować takie sposoby współdziałania, dzięki którym możemy się realnie przeciwstawić propagowaniu rasizmu i faszyzmu w internecie. Mówimy o największej platformie sprzedaży w Europie Środkowej i Wschodniej’.

Wśród ofert, które Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ zgłosiło do usunięcia przez Allegro, znalazły się współcześnie wyprodukowane flagi III Rzeszy, mundury SS, czapki i naszywki ze swastykami, imitacje nazistowskich odznaczeń, płyty z muzyką nazistowską oraz takie gadżety jak zapalniczki z wizerunkiem Hitlera, sygnety z symbolem Totenkopf (używanym przez strażników obozów koncentracyjnych), medaliony z Mussolinim.

Usunięto również wiele aukcji z książkami oficera SS Léona Degrelle’a, który po wojnie wychwalał Hitlera i negował Holokaust, Hennecke Kardela (wedle którego to Żydzi byli odpowiedzialni za Zagładę) czy wydawnictwa gloryfikujące Żelazną Gwardię – rumuńskie ugrupowanie faszystowskie, które dokonywało mordów na Żydach.

Podstawę do usunięcia ofert sprzedaży stanowią m. in. artykuły 256 oraz 257 Kodeksu karnego, a także zapisy zawarte w Załączniku nr 1 do Regulaminu Allegro. W 2018 roku Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ zostało partnerem stworzonego przez Allegro programu Współpraca w Ochronie Praw, w ramach którego wspiera serwis w eliminowaniu tego rodzaju ofert.

Stowarzyszenie ‘NIGDY WIĘCEJ’ jest powstałą w 1996 roku niezależną, apolityczną organizacją, która od wielu lat prowadzi monitoring zdarzeń na tle ksenofobicznym pt. ‘Brunatna Księga’. Stowarzyszenie jest m. in. częścią międzynarodowej sieci International Network against Cyber Hate (INACH), która skupia organizacje z dwudziestu krajów, przeciwdziałające nienawiści i dyskryminacji w internecie.

Więcej informacji:

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

Opublikowane w

A VICTORY AGAINST ONLINE PEDDLERS OF HATRED

In the space of three months the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, in cooperation with Allegro (the biggest online e-commerce platform in East-Central Europe), has effected the removal of over 1,000 auctions of newly manufactured items with racist, fascist and antisemitic content. The platform has now turned to the representatives of the association with a suggestion that they develop systems for recognising and eliminating all such future offers.

The items offered for sale included, among others, necklaces, signet rings and badges with Nazi swastikas, contemporary imitations of Nazi military decorations, a brass bust of Hitler, watches, lighters and flasks with emblems of the Third Reich, Hitler Youth pocket knives, mugs with images of Hitler, T-shirts with the inscription ‘No apologies for Jedwabne’ (Jedwabne is a town in North-East Poland where in 1941 a group of Poles burned to death hundreds of their Jewish neighbours), CDs with music by the leading neo-fascist bands, and even a contemporary coffee grinder with an SS symbol.

– ‘The Internet has become a space in which hatred is propagated on a large scale and in various ways. Allegro, the largest e-commerce company in Poland, has decided to strive to eradicate this type of offers and we are more than pleased with the results of our cooperation ‘ – said Dr Anna Tatar from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. – ‘A lot of effort is still needed to make objects or publications with racist and antisemitic content disappear from this site for good.’

– ‘It seems particularly important to remove numerous auctions offering neo-fascist music. Music is a strong carrier of ideologies, including racist extremism. When we searched Allegro we saw how easy it was to find albums of bands whose songs had references to Mein Kampf, the Aryan race, the tearing out of >the Hebrew root<, the white revolution, or national socialism. Today, the availability of such releases has been significantly reduced’ – said Jacek Dziegielewski from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association.

Thanks to the cooperation with ‘NEVER AGAIN’, hundreds of sale offers have been removed by Allegro. Over 640 of them related to items such as replicas / imitations of Nazi decorations and 230 were auctions of CDs with fascist music. There were over 70 jewellery auctions (signet rings, pendants), over 30 auctions of T-shirts with antisemitic and racist slogans, as well as more than 50 auctions of other Nazi-style gadgets, such as watches or lighters with SS symbols.

The deletion of sales offers or auctions which are contrary to law is permitted by articles 256 and 257 of the Polish Criminal Code together with the provisions in Appendix No. 1 to the Allegro Code of Conduct. Allegro has also developed a programme named ‘The Rights Protection Cooperation’ under which the service aims to eliminate illicit offers. On 21 March 2018, the International Day for Combatting Racial Discrimination, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ became an official partner in this program for a three-month pilot period. Currently both organisations are working together to develop further methods of cooperation.

Established in 1999, Allegro is one of the biggest Internet sales companies in Europe. In 2017, it had over 16 million users and more than 20 million accounts. Between 2008 and 2016 it was owned by the South African corporation Naspers (formerly Nationale Pers, a company linked with the apartheid system). For years, the platform was used for sales of racist and fascist propaganda products.

The campaign of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association against the sales of items with racist material on Allegro commenced as far back as 2009. That year a petition appealing for the removal of such auctions was signed by several thousand people, including well-known figures from the fields of culture and civil society. A court case related to the campaign led to a Supreme Court ruling in 2015, in which the Supreme Court of Poland stated the criticism of the company by activists and artists for allowing the sales of racist materials was legitimate. The continued campaign led Allegro to its later decision to establish cooperation with ‘NEVER AGAIN’.

For over a decade now the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has been taking various actions to stop the promotion of racist and antisemitic hatred on the Internet. Its programme called ‘Racism-Delete’ has had a number of successes. One of them was the decision by the Polish authorities in 2014 to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime together with the Additional Protocol on combatting racism.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association was founded in Warsaw in 1996 by Marcin Kornak (1968-2014). Throughout the years it has campaigned against racism, antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally. It has conducted anti-racist educational campaigns in the field of music and sports and it has been personally supported by numerous figures including Barack Obama, the Dalai Lama and the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is also a member of the International Network against Cyber Hate (INACH), which brings together organizations from twenty countries fighting hatred and discrimination on the Internet.

Further information may be found on:

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