TESTIMONY
Rabbi Andrew Baker
Personal Representative of the OSCE Chair-in-Office
On Combating Anti-Semitism
TESTIMONY
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
Washington, D.C.
October 14, 2009
I want to express my appreciation to the Members of the Helsinki Commission for holding this hearing today and for giving me the opportunity to share with you some thoughts drawn from my work as the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chair-in-Office on Combating Anti-Semitism.
I also want to thank the Greek Chairmanship for affording me this opportunity to address an important and difficult problem and for supporting my efforts throughout the year. They have always been helpful and have allowed me the freedom and flexibility to take up this issue throughout the OSCE region. As there has been a recent change in the Government in Athens, I should like to convey my particular gratitude to former Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. At the same time I am sure that the new Government of Prime Minister George Papandreou will continue to support the fight against intolerance and anti-Semitism during the remaining months of the Greek OSCE Chairmanship.
Let me present to you a few of the main concerns in combating anti-Semitism that have become apparent to me this year—based on the results of the several country visits I have already conducted, as well as discussions with Jewish leaders and NGOs.
Anti-Semitism in Public Discourse
An essential element of the problem in many countries is the presence of anti-Semitism in public discourse. It is offensive and pernicious in its own right, but it can also contribute to a climate which poses a security threat to Jews and Jewish institutions. The capacity to counter this anti-Semitism is frequently lacking.
Many European countries have laws which restrict or punish hate speech. They are intended to address incitement to racial or religious hatred which may appear in public speeches, in books, newspapers and other media, and on the Internet. This includes fomenting anti-Semitism and, in some cases, Holocaust denial. Rarely is the problem the legislation itself, but rather it is the infrequent and often unsuccessful record of employing it.
By way of example and drawing from some of my country visits and other personal experience,
- In Spain there have been only two successful cases of prosecuting Holocaust denial in the last twenty years, and both of them took over seven years to adjudicate. In a country where the Jewish population is less than one one-hundredth of one percent the society is likely to know Jews only from their depictions in the press and media. As it is generally accepted that the Spanish media frequently depicts Israel in a negative light, some officials have suggested that this contributes to the population’s low opinion of Jews.
- In Lithuania in 2004, the General Prosecutor opened a case against the publisher, Vitas Tomkus, after his newspaper ran a series of articles entitled “Who Rules the World?” loosely based on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and illustrated with Nazi-like cartoons. Political leaders, although privately disgusted with the articles, remained publicly silent as the months-long investigation proceeded. A year later, when the case came to trial Mr. Tomkus was found guilty. But he was not required to appear in court and the $1,000 fine had little deterrent value to this multi-millionaire publisher. Such articles still appear regularly in his newspapers.
- During this last year the Jewish Community of Greece appealed to a 1979 hate speech law in its case against the author Kostas Plevris, who wrote that the Holocaust is a “profit making myth” invented by the Jews. He was initially found guilty, but the decision was reversed on appeal. In July in an event that underscored faithfulness to Holocaust history, the Greek Foreign Ministry held a public ceremony in Athens where it honored Greek Holocaust survivors.
- Last week I sat in the Jewish Community offices in Bucharest while the President of the Jewish Federation described the personal attacks on him in the newspaper of the right-wing Greater Romania Party. Nearly two years have passed since he filed suit, but so far the public prosecutor has not responded. (Ironically, on my first visit to Romania in 1993, I sat in the same room and heard the late Rabbi Moses Rosen describe similar personal attacks on him from the very same newspaper.) I met later with the Justice Minister/Foreign Minister Catalin Predoiu during this visit, who readily acknowledged the lack of clarity in the law and its limited effectiveness. To his credit the Minister used the occasion of my visit to issue a statement stressing the moral obligation of public officials to speak out against acts of anti-Semitism.
- We also witnessed a similar example of this problem in Sweden earlier this year, when the newspaper Aftonbladet published a report from Gaza claiming that Israeli soldiers were harvesting organs from Palestinians they had killed. This updated version of the medieval blood libel charge led members of this Commission to denounce the article as anti-Semitic and to call on European leaders to do likewise. The Swedish Foreign Ministry maintained that its press freedom laws did not even permit public officials to criticize the article, but an official ombudsman did have the authority to investigate and bring charges if was determined that racial incitement laws were violated. It was quickly decided that they were not.
- The Internet is often cited as an unchecked source for all manner of hate speech including anti-Semitism. Even those countries with some experience at reining in extremist material in traditional media admit to difficulties when it comes to this source. But it is not only impressionable young people—the most frequently cited target—who are affected by it. Three years ago the Government of Latvia and its Jewish Community reached an agreement on legislation that would resolve all outstanding property restitution claims. But by the time the bill reached Parliament, opposition to the legislation—much of it spread via the Internet and anti-Semitic in nature—so unnerved its Members that it failed to pass. During my visit to Riga Latvian authorities conceded that whenever the subject of Jewish property restitution is raised in public they anticipate a spike in anti-Semitism.
We can certainly reach some general conclusions from these examples.
Put simply, many hate speech laws have the unintended consequence of letting political leaders off the hook. In the United States and other countries with strong free speech protections, manifestations of racism, anti-Semitism, and other extremist views in public discourse are generally addressed (and can only be addressed) by strong and swift rebukes from political and civic leaders. In this way such hateful speech is marginalized and isolated. But in countries with legislative remedies some political leaders will refer to the legal process as a reason or excuse not to speak out. As we see in practice those legal decisions are generally months or years away. In the meantime, there is no clear message being delivered that such hateful speech is unacceptable. Consider too that even some decent, mainstream political leaders, fearing the success of extremist movements, see calculated benefits in maintaining an ambiguous stance.
The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, speaking at a Roundtable on the problem of anti-Semitism that we convened in March, also cited special difficulties in countries with a Communist or authoritarian past. Because all speech was once monitored and controlled, he argued, prosecutors and judges are often reluctant today to pursue cases or impose penalties on those who violate hate speech laws despite having legislation to do so. Some of them have difficulty understanding that it is possible to limit some forms of speech while still vigorously protecting the principle itself.
In nearly all places anti-Semitic speech is understood to be included within the larger categories of inciting racial, ethnic or religious hatred. But virtually no penal code includes a specific or detailed description of anti-Semitism, which means it is not always recognized by prosecutors or judges or (as witnessed in Sweden) by official ombudsmen.
Where they do exist, Holocaust denial laws are not uniform. In some places denial alone is illegal; while other countries require proof that the denial of the Holocaust is part of an intentional effort inflict pain on survivors or members of the Jewish community. As a result prosecution under such a law can also vary widely.
Monitoring Anti-Semitism
Accurate and recognized monitoring of anti-Semitic incidents is frequently lacking or incomplete. The newly-released ODIHR Hate Crime Report reveals that many governments are still lax in monitoring and recording hate crime data or in disaggregating the data they do have so as to better understand who are the perpetrators and the victims. But the problem is especially acute when the goal is to combat anti-Semitism. (A summary of the findings with regard to anti-Semitic incidents is appended to this testimony.)
In countries where hate speech is not restricted, government authorities are unlikely to record such incidents. The poor record in many countries which do have such laws frequently deters citizens from even filing suit. Physical attacks on persons or the vandalizing of synagogues and cemeteries may be monitored (although with all the same gaps and limitations of hate crimes more generally), but they still ignore the anti-Semitism that appears in the press, on television, at public demonstrations, on the Internet and in anonymous hate mail. When these anti-Semitic incidents are not recorded or are underreported it conveys the misimpression to political leaders and policy makers that the problem itself is not so important.
Governments must be encouraged to do a better job of monitoring and recording anti-Semitism, and we should continue to do everything to urge them to live up to their commitments. But in the interim we can do more to assist local Jewish leadership in various OSCE countries or regions to develop their own monitoring centers and to do so in a standardized and internationally recognized way so that public authorities can accept their results.
A Working Definition of Anti-Semitism
In 2004, when the European Monitoring Center (EUMC) conducted its first study of anti-Semitism in the then 17-member European Union, it recognized the need for an operative and common definition of the phenomenon. At the time more than half of its national monitors had no definition at all, and of those that did no two were alike. In light of this the EUMC, now the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, developed a working definition, which has been adopted by the ODIHR, by the US State Department Special Envoy for Combating Anti-Semitism, and by Parliamentary Committees in Germany and the UK, among others. This definition (a copy of which is appended to this testimony) provides an overall framework for understanding what it is and offers a series of examples designed to aid police, monitors and NGOs in their work. It also describes where animosity toward the State of Israel also becomes a form of anti-Semitism.
In some countries the working definition is part of police training programs, as it is in ODIHR’s Law Enforcement Officers Program (LEOP) manual, which trains police to respond to hate crimes. In nearly all meetings during my country visits I shared the definition with government officials, who welcomed it. Those of us who are focused on the problem may not fully realize that a lack of understanding on the part of these officials is not uncommon. While physical attacks on identifiable Jewish targets may be easily recognized as anti-Semitic in nature, certain public discourse or the vilification of the Jewish State may not be so readily identified. Therefore, increasing the circulation of this working definition is a useful tool that we can promote.
Programs of ODIHR and the OSCE
If I can generalize from the tenor of the five country visits I have conducted thus far, I can say that the discussions were far more collaborative and pragmatic than confrontational in nature. There was acknowledgment that this problem is real and genuine interest in finding ways to better understand it, to combat it and to prevent it.
ODIHR’s Tolerance and Non-Discrimination Department has developed educational programs designed to combat anti-Semitism for use in secondary schools. In Slovakia and Spain we heard positive reactions from teachers and administrators. (There are at present ten country-specific versions of this curriculum and three under development.) We saw interest in adopting the program in other countries. The only thing that prevents their increased use is the limited extra-budgetary funds available to ODIHR to put them into practice.
We also saw interest in making use of the ODIHR police training programs. Here the pioneering work of the LEOP program needs to be revived, which will require both funding and the reactivation police trainers. We also saw that while providing police with the tools to recognize and investigate hate crimes is essential, it is not sufficient. Prosecutors and judges must also become familiar with the problem and recognize that these crimes must be treated in a special way. This is also something that ODIHR, provided it has the necessary resources, can undertake.
In closing I would like to acknowledge the help and support of ODIHR Director Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, Director of its Department on Tolerance and non-Discrimination Floriane Hohenberg, and its specialist on anti-Semitism Norbert Hinterleitner. Their support for my work as Personal Representative and for that of my colleagues has been essential, and it has been throughout a genuine partnership.
APPENDED ITEMS:
From the forthcoming ODIHR publication, “Hate Crimes in the OSCE Region: Incidents and Responses - Annual Report for 2008”:
- There is limited official information available on anti-Semitic hate crimes in the OSCE region.
-Nineteen participating States reported that they collect such data: Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Moldova, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the United States.
-But only eight (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) submitted figures for 2008 to ODIHR.
- Austria and the Czech Republic reported an increase in incidents compared to 2007. Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom reported a decrease. (The other three countries did not report comparable figures from 2007).
- There are non-governmental sources for data on anti-Semitic crimes in 2008 in many OSCE participating States, including Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Greece, Italy, Russian Federation, Ukraine, United Kingdom and the United States.
- In only four cases (Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and Italy) were there sufficient 2008 data to enable ODIHR to compare NGO figures with official data from governments. In two cases the unofficial data contained twice the number of anti-Semitic incidents reported in official statistics.
- ODIHR collected media reports indicating that anti-Semitic incidents took place in 2008 in Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom, and the United States.
The relevant newsletters and media reported little on the South Caucasus region and on Central Asian countries and, since the participating States did not submit figures regarding anti-Semitic hate crimes, ODIHR has no reliable information concerning these.
