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A REVISED PORTRAIT OF HUNGARY'S RIGHT-WING EXTREMISTS

Though largely ignored by the national media, Hungary's right-wing extremist Jobbik party operates within a surprisingly well-developed and self-sustained online universe. What's more, recent studies have found that the party's supporters aren't the "losers" that many experts thought they were. 

3/2/2012- The leader of Hungary's right-wing extremists rarely expresses himself so clearly. Speaking before a crowd of a few thousand supporters in Budapest's Sportmax complex on Saturday, Jan. 21, Gábor Vona announced the end of liberal democracy in the world. In the speech traditionally delivered before party members in January, the 33-year-old politician demanded "no compromising" either with or as part of the ruling political system, calling instead for "fighting, fighting and still more fighting." "We are not communists, fascists or National Socialists," Vona said. "But -- and this is important for everyone to understand very clearly -- we are also not democrats!" Vona's words were met with highly enthusiastic applause. It was the first time that the head of the right-wing Jobbik party ("The Better") -- which received just under 17 percent of the vote during elections in April 2010 -- had made such a crystal-clear rejection of democracy. The speech was only given slender and primarily disinterested coverage in the Hungarian media. Elöd Novák, a deputy chairman of the party, claimed that this probably had more to do with organizational priorities rather than a conscious effort to boycott reporting on the event. "We are the second-strongest party in Hungary," he said, "but we hardly play any role in the traditional media." Although Novák talks of "exclusion," he in no way intends it to be accusatory. Granted -- even though it backs Hungary's exit from the European Union, the party recently sent a letter of complaint to Neelie Kroes, the EU commissioner for digital agenda, alleging that it receives too little coverage from the Hungarian media. But the fact is that the party fondly fosters its image of being a media outcast. What's more, in reality, they have absolutely no need for the traditional media.

Surprisingly Modern and Well-Networked
When Jobbik wants to communicate with its supporters and voters, it takes a different tack. Party politicians speak at so-called "resident forums" almost every day and listen to people in the smallest villages voice their concerns. Still, by far their most-used vehicle for disseminating their ideology is an extremely well-organized network made up of hundreds of right-wing extremist websites interlinked via platforms like Facebook or iWiW, a Hungarian social-networking service. This was also the case with Vona's speech on Jan. 21. Barikad.hu, the website of Jobbik's weekly magazine bar!kád, broadcast the speech live. Likewise, right after the event wrapped up, other news portals operated by Hungarian right-wing extremists presented complete multimedia reports on the event, part of which eventually made its way onto Facebook. This approach has long since become a matter of routine. For years, Hungary's right-wing extremists have very effectively utilized the Internet to reach their goals. They use it to disseminate their messages and to organize demonstrations and campaigns -- many of which also involve hate speech and incitement. "The Internet has been and remains very important to us," says Márton Gyöngyösi, a Jobbik member of parliament. He explains that this is "not only on account of our limited access to the traditional media, but also because a major part of our supporters and voters are young people who we can best reach via new media."

Experts have been observing this trend for some time now. "During the 2010 election campaign, the Internet played a key role for Jobbik," says Áron Buzogány, a German-Hungarian political scientist who studies social movements in Eastern Europe. "When compared with the other parties, Jobbik had the most up-to-date Internet presence based on Web 2.0 (tools). People visiting these (web)pages could take an active role in helping shape them, thereby becoming part of the campaign themselves." Budapest-based political scientist József Jeskó, who has been studying the online activities of Hungary's right-wing extremists for years, reaches a similar conclusion. "Jobbik is the first party in the history of Hungary to have effectively used the Internet's advantages for its own purposes," he says. Jeskó emphasizes, however, that Jobbik neither built up nor controls the online network of Hungarian right-wing extremists itself. Instead, he says, "Small groups with similar convictions, but many different interests, have made contact with the help of the Internet and jointly created a virtual world for themselves." Modern, well-networked right-wing extremism in Hungary was born in the fall of 2006. At the time, there was rioting in the streets of Budapest. Among other things, demonstrators stormed the building of MTV, the national broadcasting company, and crippled its transmission abilities. One of the things that sparked the riots was the secretly taped "speech of lies" delivered by socialist Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány in May of that year. Although the speech was made during what was supposed to be a closed-door meeting of his party, it was secretly taped -- and broadcast. In it, he openly admitted to lying to voters.

Online Launching Pads for Violence
One of the things that helped spark the violent protests was the appearance a few months earlier of the website kuruc.info, which has come to be the central and most-visited online platform of Hungary's far-right extremist scene. The website disseminates extremely aggressive anti-Semitic, anti-Gypsy, chauvinistic and homophobic content. What's more, under the rubric "collection point for genetic garbage," it periodically organizes what boils down to be witch hunts against certain individuals that can sometimes have horrific consequences. For example, in December 2007, the former socialist politician Csintalan Sándor was attacked and severely mistreated. For months during the run-up to the attack, the website had hosted a campaign against what it called the "Jewish rat." Those suspected of carrying out the attack, including Hungarian neo-Nazi leader György Budaházy, were arrested in 2009 and are currently standing trial on charges of committing terrorist crimes. For years, law-enforcement officials in Hungary have also been trying to get the website, which is registered in the United States, shut down and to have the people suspected of running it arrested. But, so far, their efforts have failed. Rumor holds that one of its writers is none other than Jobbik deputy chairman Elöd Novák, though he naturally denies the accusation. "If I admitted that, I would obviously go to jail," Novák says. "But, it's true that I maintain good relations with the editorial staff," he admits before brazenly adding: "Sometimes I use my cell phone to send them material straight out of parliamentary meetings."

A World unto Itself
Oft-visited websites like kuruc.info also serve as hubs for the online network of Hungarian right-wing extremists. Visitors can follow links from these sites to other right-wing extremist websites, to the Jobbik party website, to local right-wing extremist organizations, to the web-based radio station szentkoronaradio.com and to "nationalist-feeling" folk or Rock groups -- all of which link back to each other. But that's not all. There are also ads for and links to "nationalist" stores and companies offering almost the whole range of everyday needs, including food, beverages, clothes, furniture, travel agencies, lawyers and financial advisers. Indeed, there are even websites for finding "nationalist-Christian partners" and ordering "nationalist taxis" online. Political scientist József Jeskó describes this right-wing extremist network as an "almost completely self-contained virtual system" that gives its users an "unbelievably strong identity and a comprehensive worldview, their own complete way of living that only allows means or information to penetrate from outside with extreme difficulty." For Jobbik, Jeskó adds, this network offers a "huge amount of informal capital" through which it can "transmit an illustrated worldview to its voters free of charge" and shape their opinions. "Via the traditional media," he says, "the party would have not attained that to any degree."

Not the Party of 'Losers'
What makes the network even more valuable for Jobbik is the fact that its users are not people who are poor and socially frowned upon. Many political scientists initially viewed Jobbik as a party of "losers." But new studies provide a different picture, finding that the typical Jobbik voter is male, under 35, rarely unemployed and the holder of either a trade or secondary-school degree. Early last week, the British think tank Demos and the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute released a study based on the results of a survey of over 2,200 Facebook fans of the Jobbik party. The survey found that the typical respondent has "very low levels of trust in all major social and political institutions" and is "more likely to think that violence is justified if it leads to the right outcome." Likewise, the Internet-based service index.hu, Hungary's best-read online news website, summed up the average Jobbik voter as: "Very young, very Hungarian, very ill-tempered." For political scientist Áron Buzogány, this shows that Jobbik's popularity is the tragic result of Hungary's failed political evolution. "For a long time, the country has been split into left and right to an extraordinarily deep degree, which is becoming an increasingly large social problem," he says. "An entire stratum of young people has grown up in the context of this division and has now found a home in the right-wing extremist micro-universe."
© The Spiegel

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DEATH THREATS POSTED AGAINST CRUSADING B.C. SENIOR (Canada)

Man who monitors Craigslist for racist postings becomes victim himself

3/2/2012- Police in B.C. are investigating death threats against a man who has complained about hate speech on Craigslist’s Vancouver website, CBC News has learned
Cran Campbell, of Delta, B.C., says he regularly monitors the Rants and Raves section of the popular website and flags postings he believes are racist, hateful or threatening. Campbell said he also reports some of the more vicious comments to police. Delta police are now investigating death threats against the 63-year-old retiree that have been made in comments brazenly posted on Craigslist. "Just like a pesky mosquito he should be swatted ... and silenced forever," one posting about Campbell said. "Keep looking over your shoulder," said another. Someone has also posted Campbell's picture and his home address. “I get a bit concerned when they tell me they're coming to my address,” Campbell said Friday. “But you know what? Nothing in this world is going to stop me from doing what I'm doing right now.”

Postings advocate killing
He said he's found many postings that openly talk of killing as many people from a particular race as possible. “I cannot stand racism and hatred,” said Campbell. “It's not in my blood to do that. It's not in any of my family that accepts that.” B.C.’s Hate Crimes Team is looking closely at the racist postings. “If you are promoting or inciting hatred against an identifiable group, then that potentially could be a criminal offence, but it's a long process that we have to look at,” said the head of the team, Det. Const. Terry Wilson. One anti-racism activist told CBC News he sympathizes with Campbella. “It's a serious situation. We can't take it lightly,” said Alan Dutton, of the Canadian Anti-Racism Education and Research Society. “There needs to be protection for these individuals that do make complaints. And I would hope that people who do have the courage to come forward do take precautions.” Campbell said he is adamant and will not back down, and will continue to flag racists on Craigslist.
© CBC News

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NEO-NAZI MEMBER CALLS HACKING 'AN INVASION OF PRIVACY' (Canada)

Names leaked by computer hackers in Europe   

2/2/2012- Some Canadians whose associations with white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups were recently revealed, are defending their involvement with the organizations, while others deny having anything to do with the groups anymore. CBC News reported Wednesday that the names of 74 Canadians were found in files leaked by computer hackers in Europe who were intent on exposing hate movements. The identities were revealed on a website called nazi-leaks.net, which is now offline. “It is an invasion of privacy,” said Joel Henry, of Langley, B.C., in a telephone interview with CBC News Thursday. “I have my beliefs and I still have my beliefs,” said Henry. “It’s just certain members of the group want to go out and beat the s--t out of people and I don’t condone that.” McLean Welsh, of Nanaimo, B.C., who is attending school in Quebec, sought to distance himself from one of the hacked organizations. “I could be on the list because I bought a couple T-shirts off that website a couple of years ago,” said Welsh, when reached via Skype. “For instance, the shirt I’m wearing right now.” Welsh said he has severed his ties with the group. “I joined the Stormfront once and it just didn’t appeal to me,” said Welsh. “Because as soon as you say you’re proud to be white, you’re automatically associated with a Nazi party.”

Membership not illegal
New Westminster police detective Terry Wilson, head of the B.C. hate crime team, said he and his colleagues aren't sure if the hacked information is useful for their purposes or not. Wilson also cautioned that the RCMP is not trying to police how people think, but will step in once individuals’ actions break the law. “Membership [in these groups] is not against the law,” he said. ”It’s when your motivations make you do criminal offences, that’s when it becomes a police issue and that’s when the B.C. hate crime team and other hate crime teams across the country get involved.” Police and government security organizations should be able to make use of the hacked information, according to Simon Fraser University professor Andre Gerolymatos, who has written extensively on espionage. “Any information is good information,” said Gerolymatos. “Something that comes like this is sort of a small bonanza. And at the very least it can verify information that [authorities] already have.”
© CBC News

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ANONYMOUS ATTACKS AMERICAN NAZI PARTY: OPERATION BLITZKRIEG CONTINUES

30/1/2012- Tango Down: Anonymous hacktivists take down and deface American Nazi Party website. On Sunday, hacktivists associated with Anonymous hacked and defaced the web page belonging to the American Nazi Party. The action is a continuation of the ongoing Operation Blitzkrieg - #OpBlitzkrieg. A hacktivist crew identified as SolSec is taking credit for the hack, and their moniker is displayed prominently on the defacement displayed on the American Nazi Party web page. Anonymous Center was the first to Tweet the news on Sunday. Earlier this month, Anonymous hacktivists crippled leading neo-Nazi websites in Germany, hacking and releasing member information to the public. The action shut down 15 websites linked to Germany's neo-Nazi National Democratic Party, including one far right platform called Altermedia.
Anonymous hacktivists gained access to and released member information from the far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), the major neo-Nazi party in Germany. In addition to making public the identity of NPD supporters and donors, Anonymous also released internal NPD emails. Operatrion Blitzkrieg was initially conceived and launched in May 2011. The following is an excerpt taken from a press release announcing Operation Blitzkrieg:

Neo-Nazis
Your incomprehensible actions, and your reluctance to accept the Freedom and Equality that every single human being possesses by right from birth, causes the birth to hatred and worldwide Racism.
After the first World War, your ideology plunged the world into chaos. You took over a plague, known as anti-Semitism, and made sure that racism was drilled into our collective consciousness...
Your misdirected politics and your hate filled crusade against humanity have not only blurred your perception, but also affected countries worldwide... You have combined the ideals of industrialization with the abomination of mass murder, a circumstance that led to destruction of human life, in a scale never seen before.
You are still causing injuries and killing people...
You intimidate people that go on the streets protest for their ideals, and attack your political opponents....
This behaviour can no longer be tolerated...

We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.
Expect Us.

More may be coming. According to the Twitter stream: #SolSec is still in the kitchen, cooking up some stuff because we know you expect us..

UPDATE: Another white supremacist website has been taken down by Anonymous - http://www.whitehonor.com is currently down. Further updates will follow when and if they become available.
© The Examiner

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Headlines January 2012

TWITTER TO CENSOR POSTS BY COUNTRY

Twitter has introduced a system that lets it censor specific tweets or block whole user accounts in some countries, while leaving them visible in others.

27/1/2012- On Thursday, the company said it needs to be able to selectively withhold posts because it must deal with a vast array of freedom-of-expression laws around the world, as a result of its expansion into new countries. It will only do so in response to a "valid and properly scoped request from an authorised entity", it stressed. In a blog post, Twitter noted some countries have such poor freedom-of-expression rights that the service "will not be able to exist there". However, others have more-acceptable bans on certain types of material, it said: for example, France and Germany both have prohibitions on neo-Nazi content. "Until now, the only way we could take account of those countries' limits was to remove content globally. Starting today, we give ourselves the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world," Twitter said, adding it will work out user location via the IP address. "We have also built in a way to communicate transparently to users when content is withheld and why," the company said.

In the UK, Twitter found itself at the centre of a privacy row last year, when users defied a High Court superinjunction protecting the identity of a well-known footballer involved in a legal case. The footballer's lawyers were thought to have sued Twitter in its home country of the US, although they subsequently denied doing so. The US has stronger freedom-of-expression laws than the UK does, making it unlikely that Twitter would have agreed to censor its global network at the request of a High Court judge. Internet law expert Lilian Edwards, professor of e-governance at Strathclyde University, believes Twitter's move is more likely to enhance freedom of speech than stifle it. "I think on the whole it's a step forward," Edwards told ZDNet UK. "It's rather like the start of the internet, when Compuserve had to close down whole news groups if they breached Bavarian law, even if they were legal everywhere else. Granularity is generally good for global free speech in stopping the race to the lowest-common-denominator bottom." Edwards pointed out that Twitter has no choice but to comply with legal injunctions. This means it is "best for all of us if they can be as transparent as possible about what they are being asked to do and what they actually censor in response", she said.

Taking down tweets
According to a new Twitter policy note, filtered posts will be replaced in users' timelines with a greyed-out message saying: 'This Tweet from @Username has been withheld in: Country'. There will also be a link to further information. Twitter has not yet used its selective censorship capability, it said. When it does need to do so, it will first try to contact the person whose tweet or account is targeted. In addition, it will list instances of filtering on a special Chilling Effects page. Chilling Effects is an online archive used by Google and others to record takedown requests arising from US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notices. The archive's Twitter section includes dozens of DMCA notices demanding the removal of tweets that link to copyright-infringing material. From now on, the page will also list the censorship requests from other sources.

Twitter will attempt to notify affected users of the takedown request via the email address it has on file for that account. The email will identify the content affected, who is making the takedown request, while the person's timeline or account will have a "visual indicator" of what has happened, the company said. "It is then up to the user to decide whether they would prefer to leave the content online, challenge the underlying request, or, if they choose, to delete a Tweet or deactivate their account," Twitter said.
© ZDNet UK

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ONLINE PETITIONS TO PUT EU UNDER PUBLIC SCRUTINY

27/1/2012- With just weeks until to go until the EU dips its toe into the unpredictable world of participatory democracy, internet giants are warning the European Commission it had better be prepared for scrutiny by a critical and highly-wired public. On 1 April, over 10 years since EU leaders publicly declared that they need to make the union more democratic, a system giving citizens the chance to shape European debate and potentially its legislation will go live. The so-called Citizens Initiative requires the European Commission to consider legislating in an area on the back of at least 1 million signatures from a minimum of seven (or one quarter) of member states. "This new right will open a new chapter in the democratic life of the EU. Not only will it provide a direct gateway for citizens to make their voices heard in Brussels, it will also encourage real cross-border debates about EU issues," said EU commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic at a conference launching the initiative website on Thursday (26 January).

Danish Europe minister Nicolai Wammen indicated the most important aspect of the new tool will be that citizens will have the chance to "set the agenda," noting that getting a "conversation" going about an issue means already being "half way there." With the Arab Spring showcasing the power of social networks such as Facebook to spread news and ideas, some at the conference suggested the Citizens Initiative will see the fairly disparate protests against unemployment and austerity measures in various member states become a single, widely-supported petition. For her part, Facebook's policy chief in Brussels, Erika Mann says that "humans love to have a connection and to live in a better world" and that this "all connects to the political world." Simon Hampton, European public policy director at internet search company Google, believes it is likely to be a game-changer for the way the commission interacts with citizens. "The internet-powered citizen expects to be listened to. They want to be part of the conversation," he said. He added that the new tool "puts the commission under scrutiny too."

In a recent example in the US, the White House reconsidered a new anti-piracy law after thousands of people voiced concern about free speech on the internet and popular websites, such as Wikipedia, blacked out their homepage in protest. Some social network sites say they will be natural allies of the European initiative. Giuseppe de Martino, secretary general of video-sharing website Dailymotion, said his company could be a "video platform that uses images to explain the initiative."
Further down the line, successful initiatives are likely to be taken up by European political parties which will next year begin thinking about their campaigns for the 2014 European elections. But the first few months are likely to see a period of experimentation by both sides - citizens seeing how it works and the European Commission seeing how to respond.

Critics have warned the initiative could be hijacked by one-horse issues pushed by a particular interest group. But the commission says this will be countered by the threshold of member states and signatures required. It also has several get-out clauses - initiatives cannot be called for actions which lie "outside" its powers or which are "abusive, frivolous or vexatious." They are also prohibited from being "contrary to EU values." The success of the EU's foray into participatory democracy is likely to depend on how fairly citizens think the commission applies these criteria.
© The EUobserver

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CONTROVERSY SURROUNDS MICROSOFT’S 'AVOID GHETTO APP' (usa)

23/1/2012- Over a week ago, Microsoft was awarded a patent for a new feature to appear on new Windows phones with GPS devices that would take into account the weather and crime statistics of neighborhoods when giving directions. The patent filing states that the technology would help users avoid “unsafe neighborhoods or being in an open area that is subject to harsh temperatures.” Some have dubbed this new feature the “ghetto app,” and it has drawn criticism for being racist. “It’s pretty appalling,” Sarah E. Chinn, author of “Technology and the Logic of American Racism,” told AOL Autos last week. “Of course, an application like this defines crime pretty narrowly, since all crimes happen in all kinds of neighborhoods. I can’t imagine that there aren’t perpetrators of domestic violence, petty and insignificant drug possession, fraud, theft and rape in every area.

“A more useful app would be for young Black men to be able to map blocks with the highest risk of being pulled over or stopped on the street by police,” continued Chinn. “That phenomenon affects many more people than the rare occurrences of random violence against motorists driving through ‘bad’ neighborhoods.” But Mary Mitchell, a columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, is calling out the outrage over the app. She says those who are opposed to the app are smug, considering that the “ghetto app” was labeled as such by the media and pundits, not by Microsoft itself. “Although the murder rate is down more than 2 percent citywide, neighborhoods plagued by gangs and drugs, like Englewood, saw a dramatic increase in homicides,” said Mitchell. “It is no wonder so many Black people have fled to the suburbs.

“But whenever anyone dares point out that this madness is not happening in all of the city’s neighborhoods and is primarily occurring in neighborhoods that are predominantly Black, many of us bristle over the ugly truth,” she continued. “In this instance, asking if the so-called ‘ghetto app’ is racist is asking the wrong question.
“The question we should consider is whether it is racist to refer to Microsoft’s pending patent as a ‘ghetto app’ in the first place?” contended Mitchell. “‘Ghetto’ was scuttled by the media decades ago because it was deemed to be an offensive term used to describe low-income and crime-affected neighborhoods. Today, people throw the word around as if it were innocuous.”
© Black Voice News

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ANTI-SEMITISM REMAINS PREVALENT IN GERMAN SOCIETY

A new report has found that one in five Germans harbors anti-Semitic feelings. This puts Germany at about the mid-range among European countries.

23/1/2012- A report released on Monday suggests that one in five Germans harbors "latent" anti-Semitism. The report, which was prepared by an independent commission appointed by the German parliament, found that about a fifth of Germans agreed with anti-Semitic statements such as "Jews have too much power in business." "Anti-Semitism in our society is based on widespread prejudices, deeply rooted cliches and on sheer ignorance about Jews and Judaism," one of the authors, the London-based German history professor Peter Longerich, told reporters at a press conference to unveil the report in Berlin.

Permeating the mainstream
The report says that anti-Semitism permeates well into the mainstream of society, and it quotes children as using the words "you Jew" as a derogatory term on the playground. It also quotes chants from crowds at soccer matches involving Jewish teams, shouting things like "Jews to the gas chamber," or "bring back Auschwitz." At the same time, though, it notes that the vast majority of anti-Semitic crimes are committed by right-wing extremists, who are estimated to number only about 26,000 of Germany's more than 80 million inhabitants.

The perils of the Internet
The report calls for better coordination of local, state and federal strategies to combat anti-Semitism, and it sees the Internet as a major problem. "With regard to modern forms of communication - we point to the Internet in particular - it is virtually impossible to prevent the spread of such thinking," Longerich said. The report notes that the Internet provides a platform for spreading all kinds of extreme ideas, with anti-Semites, Holocaust deniers and Islamist extremists all using it extensively to promote their goals. The deputy speaker of the German parliament, Wolfgang Thierse, warned that anti-Semitism was not only present in the form of the sort of spectacular events that tend to be covered in the media. "Anti-Semitism is a constant phenomenon," the Social Democrat politician said, adding that this required an ongoing response. The report put Germany in the mid-range of European countries in terms of the prevalence of anti-Semitism, well behind countries like Poland, Hungary, and Portugal.
© The Deutsche Welle

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WEBSITE TOUTS RUSE TO TURN IN ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS (Sweden)

An anti-immigrant website has urged readers to infiltrate a group focused on helping undocumented immigrants in Sweden in order to turn them over to police.

25/1/2012- The campaign by the Sweden Democrat-linked website Avpixlat (literally, "unpixelated", but also a Swedish colloquialism meaning to "reveal" or "unmask"), comes in response to a call for help in finding housing for a family of undocumented immigrants published on Facebook last week by asylum advocacy group Asylgruppen Lund. The website, launched in October 2011, was registered by Sweden Democrat MP Kent Ekeroth, and contains material which echoes the party's negative line on immigration, multicultural society, and the mainstream Swedish media. “Right now Asylgruppen Lund is looking for criminals in Sweden who are willing to offer housing to some illegals,” reads a posting on Avpixlat published on January 20th, the day following the Facebook appeal by Asylgruppen Lund. The anti-immigrant website called on readers to respond to the request by the asylum advocacy group in order to “infiltrate” the organization and gather as much information as possible about the undocumented immigrants in need of housing and then hand the information to police. According to Avpixlat, the action will ensure that “both the criminals included in the group can be brought to justice and the illegals with whom they are acting as complicit criminals can be turned over to the authorities and kicked out of the country”.

Kenny Källström, a representative from Asylgruppen Lund told Sveriges Television (SVT) that the group had received several fake responses to their request. “It's an embarrassing attempt to infiltrate us,” he told SVT. “It's a terrible way to sabotage those of us who are working to help families who have a real need for protection.”
According to Källström, the family referenced in the housing request is from Afghanistan and have had their asylum application rejected and are to be deported. In a comment to SVT, the editor of Avpixlat, Lennart K, said the site wants to fight against people staying in Sweden illegally. “We want to stop these illegal activities, which we also see as anti-democratic and detrimental to society,” he said. While Avpixlat characterizes the housing of rejected asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants as “criminal”, Migration Board (Migrationsverket) spokesperson Johan Rahm told SVT such activities aren't illegal. “Helping or hiding the undocumented isn't in any way criminal,” he said, adding however that staying in Sweden without a valid residence permit is indeed illegal.
© The Local - Sweden

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SUSPECT ARRESTED OVER ISLAMIST THREAT VIDEO (Norway)

A 21-year-old man will face a remand hearing on Friday following his arrest on suspicion of having posted a hateful video to the internet calling on Allah to destroy members of the Norwegian government and royal family.

20/1/2012- The suspect will appear in front of Skien district court in south-eastern Norway at 1pm on Friday. The man, a Norwegian citizen with a Central American family background, was arrested at his home in the town at 11pm on Wednesday by officers from the Telemark police service and the domestic police intelligence agency, PTS. He faces preliminary charges of threatening state officials and incitement to terrorism. The suspect’s lawyer, John Christian Elden, said his client admitted to being behind the video but did not believe it contained any threats. “He was not previously known to police, and he doesn't think he has done anything illegal, even though he admits that he’s the one who posted the video,” said Elden.

A link to the video was posted in the early hours of Tuesday morning in a Facebook group with 1,600 members called ‘Demonstrasjon: Norske soldater ut av Afghanistan’ [Demonstration: Norwegian soldiers out of Afghanistan]. The group’s aim is to gather protesters for a rally outside the Oslo parliament on Friday. The number of group members has dropped to below 1,300 since the video appeared there. In the video, images of Crown Prince Haakon, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre are accompanied by a song in Arabic that contains the words: “Oh Allah, destroy them, and let it be painful”. The clip, which is just over four minutes long, also features pictures of Norwegian soldiers and injured children. It ends with the sound of an explosion and a picture of a Norwegian vehicle in flames.
© The Local - Norway

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ANTI-SEMITIC TRENDING TOPIC CAUSES COMMOTION (Netherlands)

20/1/2012- A spokesperson for the Centre for Information and Documentation Israel has called a trending topic hashtag on social media site Twitter “Highly distasteful”. The hashtag #jodengaaneraan which loosely translates as the'Jews have had it' refers to an upcoming football match between Amsterdam’s Ajax team and Rotterdam’s Feyenoord in just over a week’s time. The Amsterdam team Ajax is often referred to as being Jewish. While the Feyenoorders are often referred to with the hashtag #BommenopRotterdam or Bombs on Rotterdam referring to the bombing of the city during World War II. Some of the tweets link to images referring to the match. The director general of the CIDI Ronny Naftaniel says the organisation has been trying to ban the hashtag, but so far without avail. “We have not been able to contact Twitter.” A trending topic is a subject that is being referred to frequently by many people on Twitter. The hashtag was also trending worldwide. “Of course, it is about football and of course it is about supporters. But if you say this with your head held high, apparently with a certain amount of pride, then you are on the same level as the Nazis,” says Mr Naftaniel. The CIDI director general declined to say whether the words are tantamount to committing an offence: “It’s definitely hurtful”. The CIDI has been cooperating with the Dutch football association to ban anti-Semitic taunts in football stadiums. Many of the reactions on Twitter condemn the hashtag. Earlier tweets appear to be orchestrating the hashtag as a trending topic.
© Radio Netherlands Worldwide

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HAVE RACISTS AND FASCISTS TAKEN OVER THE INTERNET? (South Africa, opinion)

By Dan Roodt

20/1/2012- Yesterday a lot of American websites were blacked out in protest against the new legislation in that country aiming to give more control over the internet to major corporate copyright holders. In fact, not since Gutenberg invented the printing press, has there ever been such a revolution in publishing and freedom of speech as over the past fifteen years or so. However, like the Catholic church tried to contain the Reformation in Europe, many powerful institutions are looking at the proliferation of internet speech with a jaundiced eye. Certainly, copyright does seem to be under threat. Never again will some rock group like the Beatles or Pink Floyd earn enough money from album sales to afford a private airliner to fly from one gig to the next. When my youngest son was about three, he could already say "download".

The question is: do mediocre pop artists and Hollywood actors deserve to be so stinkingly rich? While much more talented and accomplished classical musicians starve and the theatre falls by the wayside. When it comes to politics, many people and interest groups perceive the internet to be something of a threat to society. One of the most hilarious statements I have ever heard was made by Max du Preez at the Boekehuis in Melville, Johannesburg. With an irritated snort, Max said to fellow journalist Tim du Plessis, at the time editor of Beeld: "Don't talk to me about the internet. It has been taken over by racists and fascists."

Until very recently, certain taboo topics could not be discussed in print. You all know what they are, so I will not dwell on them. Suffice it to say that race, immigration, differences between men and women, and whether the Bible prohibits homosexuality are some of them. Nobel prize winners in science or the Harvard president have lost their jobs for making a casual remark about these subjects. A body of writing like Stalking the Wild Taboo could only exist on the internet. Sometime during the twentieth century, during and just after the nineteen-sixties, a profound change took place. Not that the world had suddenly changed. But that decade of protest and decadence had ushered in a revolution in two very influential institutions: the universities and the media.

Journalists, with the exception of court reporters chronicling murder cases, are usually trained at university. Because university professors are usually left-wing radicals, journalists, by and large, tend to be left-wing radicals. In the USA, eighty-six percent of tenured academics vote for the Democratic Party. The fourteen percent who vote Republican are probably confined to disciplines like mathematics and engineering where graduates are unlikely to end up in the journalistic profession. So the traditional media are no mirror for society. Print and television show us the world as it ought to be, not as it really is. With the liberation of the common man, online man, the journalists and professors have become utterly horrified. Reading Facebook or Twitter or millions of Wordpress blogs, the media elite encounter heterosexual, middle-class people, many of whom are white, who are revelling in the opportunity to say what they think.

The internet has brought a real demoratisation of opinion, regardless of spelling and grammar. You could call that a quotable quote, except that Max du Preez and the rest of the media insiders will never quote me. Nor will the professors quote me, because to them I represent part of that new threat, the uprising of the internet scribes and rebels. As we know, the Left has never really liked democracy. When the working class of Europe and North America refused to rise up against capitalism, they called it "false consciousness". When black people in this country at first refused to rebel against the former government, they were called "sell-outs" and beaten and necklaced into submission. A democratic debate on the internet around taboo issues also represents anathema to those who still lament the fall of the Berlin wall. The masses are fine as long as they can be cajoled, intimidated or brainwashed into the point of view of the leftist elite. But if they stray too far from accepted norms it must be denounced as populism. Or worse still: racism and fascism.

There is a worldwide persecution of people who are more or less normal, like you and me. I know a Swedish girl who was expelled from school for saying she loved her country. Of course, her teachers were just your average Swedish teachers, socialists and supporting everything from gay marriage to the right of African dictators to spend yet another trillion dollars' worth of aid without having anything to show for it. Being in love with a beautiful Nordic country like Sweden with its silver birch trees, its lakes and snow, its fine old cities and blue-eyed citizens, was enough to betray her nationalism. And as we have been taught, nationalism and fascism are just two sides of the same coin.

The average middle-class, heterosexual man or woman has children, a house, a car and responsibilities. He or she is already besieged by the threat of instability: break-up with the spouse, the drug dealer on the school corner, homework, getting to school and work on time, the next exam, meeting payments to the bank, keeping one's job, office politics, staying healthy and solvent. Just coping with modern life is in itself stressful enough without the added complications, so dear to the Left and their spokesmen - forgive me the sexist blunder! - spokespeople in the mainstream media. So to Koos or Marietjie van der Merwe out there, the esoteric neo-Marxist pursuits of the PC brigade seem at once outlandish and downright dangerous. Being tolerant of gays is one thing but teaching children to become gay, as happens in some European countries, is another. Especially if you have children yourself. My personal bête noire is people mixing up English and Afrikaans, as on Sewendelaan. It must eventually lead to barbarism, even cannibalism.

If South Africa's white middle class had to vote again in an honest referendum asking the real question: "Do you want to turn South Africa and the SADF's weapons over to the ANC so that they may spend your taxes on Mercs and holidays, make anti-white laws and pamper the criminals?" more than ninety percent would vote "no". But in the early nineties the local media had simply followed the lead of their overseas counterparts in predicting a brilliant outcome if the purveyors of communist theories and the necklace would be given carte blanche to "transform" South Africa. The Left had a dream in Europe and they called it "scientific socialism". It killed a hundred million people and then finally it was labelled the gulag. In South Africa the Left brought us "democracy", which means that a small group of people may appropriate all the wealth and make laws to prevent your child from being admitted to university, at least in the medical faculty - and some other faculties too. If you complain about that, Max and company will smear you as a racist and a fascist.

But Max doesn't know an IP from a config file. Or a template from a plug-in. Neither do those media execs who are trying to put a lid on it in the name of copyright protection. The European socialists, no matter how they deride their opponents as populists and extremists, have already lost the war, thanks to intrepid anti-Islamic websites in no small measure. When my sixteen-year old daughter saw the black screens yesterday, she exclaimed: "This is the internet! This is power! This is us! Don't you just feel it?"  Somewhere, someone must be trembling...
© News 24

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WIFI SIGNAL WITH RACIST, ANTI-SEMITIC SLUR IN TEANECK, NJ SPARKS POLICE PROBE (usa)

Mom of two shocked, dismayed as iphone flashes hateful WiFi signal as daughter danced

18/1/2012- A bigot named their WiFi signal “F--- All Jews and N----” — and now cops are investigating. The hateful signal I.D. popped up on the iPhone of a 28-year-old mom inside a Teaneck, N.J. recreation center, where her 3-year-old daughter was attending dance class. The offending signal was coming from a router connected in the Richard Rodda Community Center in the the township, located 10 miles outside New York City. "When I first saw it, I said, 'Did that say what I thought it said?," said the woman, who asked that her name not be used. “I was shocked, hurt. I felt harassed." The signal showed on her phone as it searched for an Internet connection in the center Tuesday. "I felt like I'm bringing my daughter to this place, and it should be a safe place," she said. The woman, who is African-American, rushed to the office, and informed employees and other parents of the hateful WiFi connection.

Police were called, and when they responded they located the router in the rec center, township Police Chief Robert Wilson said. Police received similar complaints about the signal Friday during a "teen night" event at the center, the woman said she was told. The Teaneck Police Department Juvenile Bureau and the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office Computer Crime Unit are investigating it as a "possible bias crime," Wilson said. "I hope that the person responsible for this is caught,” the woman who reported the signal said. “This should not be tolerated in this town. They should see jail time for it," the mom of two said. Township Mayor Mohammed Hameeduddin called news of the rec center incident "deeply disturbing." He noted recent attacks in Bergen County against the Jewish community. "It's very disheartening that someone would put that out there. I was very concerned about these things coming to Teaneck."

He said the town has stepped up patrols to prevent hate crimes in the township, and vowed to track down the culprit. "We're going to work hard to find out who did it," said Hameeduddin, who became the first Muslim mayor of the town in 2010. "I don't know if this is organized." Township Councilwoman Lizette Parker heard about the WiFi signal last night while at the recreation center. "It's appalling to me," said Parker, who is black. "It's horrifying to me that a person could hate a group of people so much that they give that name to their router. It's very troublesome. We need to get to the bottom of this." The community center is located in the center of the township, near the local high school and a large park. Teaneck, known for its diversity, was the first community to voluntarily integrate its public schools in the 1960s. The township website bills the suburban town as "one of New Jersey's most culturally diverse communities."
© The New York Daily News

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7 TEENS CHARGED IN BEATING POSTED ON YOUTUBE (usa)

18/1/2012- Seven teens were charged early Wednesday in the attack and robbery of a teenager that was caught on tape and posted on YouTube. Six boys and a 15-year-old girl are accused of participating in the beating and robbery of a 17-year-old male at about 4 p.m. Sunday in an alley behind an elementary school just south of the city's downtown. Raymond Palomino, 17, was the only person in the group charged as an adult, with robbery and aggravated battery. The other six -- two 16-year-old boys, three 15-year-old boys and the15-year-old girl -- were charged as juveniles, also with one count of robbery and one count of aggravated battery. Their names were not released. The video posted online shows five males kicking and punching the victim while taunting him with racial slurs. The victim was eventually able to run away. He was taken to a local hospital where he was treated and released.
© US News MSNBC

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MAN ARRESTED OVER TWITTER RACISM (uk)

A man has been arrested in connection with racist abuse on Twitter directed at Newcastle United Football Club.

18/1/2012- The 29-year-old is being questioned after police received a flurry of complaints over comments made on the social networking site last night. The abuse, posted as Newcastle prepared to unveil their new signing, Senegalese striker Papiss Demba Cisse, is alleged to have focused on the number of black players the club has in its squad. Newcastle United has condemned the comments. A Northumbria Police spokesman said: ''We have received a report of racist comments made on Twitter.
''Northumbria Police takes all reports of racist abuse very seriously and inquiries are being conducted.

Louis Saha, the French striker who plays for Everton, Rangers players Maurice Edu and Kyle Bartley and Inverness Gregory Tade have were all reported as being victims of racist tweets this month. Saha was was told 'go back to France ya f****** n*****' after the account of a fan was allegedly accessed without permission. Saha, 33, retweeted the message, adding: "Don't attached (sic) urself with the club. U disgrace." It came to light on the day politicians called for an inquiry into racism in football. Rangers' Kyle Bartley, who is on loan from Arsenal, and Maurice Edu, were alleged to have been targeted by Michael Convery, 41, from Glasgow, who was charged with making racist remarks on the social networking site and has since been bailed. Bartley tweeted in response: "Disappointing that in 2012 things like this are still happening.”
© The Telegraph

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CARELESS USE OF SOCIAL MEDIA CAN CAUSE REAL PAIN (Bermuda)

13/1/2012- Social media has taken the world by storm – but instant communication has its downside, particularly on a small island like Bermuda. Cases have shown that posting before you think can cause grief to relatives of the dead — who find out about their loss before the police get to them — and can cost people their jobs. Police Assistant Commissioner David Mirfield said: “Social networking is instantaneous and is now part of everyday life, however there has to be a line drawn between the intrusion onto people’s private lives, their grief, and when it impacts negatively on the investigation of crime. “To try and police the cyber networks is impossible, and not practicable for even the largest police service. We can appeal to moral codes and ethics, however, if irresponsible individuals choose to use social networks as a tool of destruction and harm we will endeavour to identify the author, and consider a prosecution.

Malicious rumours
“Examples could include inciting a criminal offence, fueling a hate crime, endangering the lives of witnesses or indeed spreading malicious rumours regarding persons responsible for criminal offences.” Mr Mirfield spoke out on the issue last year, after the October murder of 18-year-old Malcolm Outerbridge on the Railway Trail in Warwick. Mr Mirfield said that, within an hour of the killing, a name and photograph which was claimed to be that of the victim was being circulated by mobile phone – both were wrong. He added: “We continue to discourage the dissemination of unconfirmed information by the public or the media, as this can cause unnecessary distress.” Well-known Bermuda blogger Carla Zuill said: Every time someone young or well known passes, I cringe when I see them named within a short time of their unfortunate death. “We are now living in a time where we are so used to instant communication that it seems like many forget that these victims have families, some of whom have no clue of what has happened. “It’s a horrible way for them to find out about their loved one’s death. I would implore them to put themselves in the victims’ family’s shoes and ask themselves: ‘Would I want to find out this way?’ “

She added that negative comments about work or employers on social media like Facebook could cause people enormous problems if they failed to take account of the potential pitfalls of posting. Ms Zuill said: “It’s employment suicide — why bite the hand that feeds you?” Employment law expert Kelvin Hastings-Smith of legal giants Appleby said: “I’m not aware of any cases directly involving this kind of issue in Bermuda, but there was an incident a couple of years ago involving a member of my own profession where there was a social media comment in the middle of a trial which had repercussions. “Social media is certainly an issue which should be taken very seriously, although there are two sides to it. One is that people should be allowed to use social media responsibly – but others say that they don’t want anything about our company online. “Social media is one of the best tools for tracking people down and finding out about them. In divorce cases, husbands have pleaded poverty, but boasted online about their wealth. “People should not post anything that they don’t want just anyone to know about. There are things that people do which can come back to haunt them.”

Mr Hastings-Smith added that employers now routinely checked social media to help assess applicants for jobs. He said: “When people are young, they can get drunk and get photographed in silly poses – employees do due diligence and they will think twice if they see something like that.” He added that people could even lose their jobs if they were seen to be acting inappropriately in images and postings on social media. Mr Hastings-Smith said: “People should also be careful who they invite on to a social site – your boss might be nice and friendly, but he’s still your boss.” He added: “The issue of finding out about the death of loved ones on social media sites is absolutely irresponsible on the part of the people who post that. “They do it because they want to be important and say “I was the first one to break the news’ – but it is appalling and should not happen.”
© The Bermuda Sun

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FACEBOOK'S TARGETED ADVERTISING BLAMED IN GAY BRITISH TEEN ALLEGEDLY BEING THROWN OUT OF HOME

12/1/2012- Facebook is firing back at allegations the social networking site "destroyed the life" of a gay British teen. As Privacy International reported, the teen -- whom they refer to only as "David" -- was thrown out of his London home after his parents discovered "incriminating" gay content on his Facebook page. The content that David's parents allegedly found was not intentionally placed on their son's Facebook page by him, but rather the targeted advertising generated by the site itself based on a user's activities and relationships. As the site reports, "He never mentioned anywhere on his profile that he was gay, and was not openly involved in any online gay groups. For David, living in a closed-minded community and with homophobic parents, such revelations would be disastrous." The report continues: "The company placed that material on his page without notification, without his consent and in violation of every principle of care that the company claims to stand for...David knew the ads were displayed on his profile, but could do nothing to remove them no matter how hard he tried. They just kept coming back. On this occasion he made the mistake of leaving his computer screen on while going to the shop, unaware that his parents were to return earlier than expected to the house."

A Facebook official expressed their support for David to Forbes, but denied the site's content could have explicitly contributed to his abandonment. "We sympathize with anyone who has been the victim of discrimination and we are saddened by the story Privacy International shared on its blog," the spokesperson said. "However, this case is about appalling discrimination and unauthorized access to a person’s account, not advertising. Our ads are only shown to people based on the information they have chosen to post or add to their profile — the same information that would have been visible as a result of the unauthorized access." Unicorn Booty blogger Kevin Farrell also questioned Privacy International's decision to point the finger at the social networking site. "The very act of creating a Facebook page and participating in the world’s biggest social networking site requires acknowledgement of the company’s terms of service, which include targeting ads," he wrote. "Closeted Facebook users should surely exercise caution when using the free site, especially if their home life is potentially volatile." Of course, it's not the site's first time being named in connection with an LGBT youth case. In January 2011, Kameron Jacobsen, a 14-year-old New York student, was allegedly tormented by school bullies on Facebook over his perceived sexual orientation before taking his own life. Previously, Facebook employees took part in an "It Gets Better" campaign video in support of LGBT youth.
© The Huffington Post

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AMANDA CUMMINGS’ SUICIDE LEADS TO NEW YORK CYBERBULLYING BILL (usa)

10/1/2012- After the tragic suicide of 15 year old Amanda Cummings last week, one New York State lawmaker is planning on attacking cyberbullying. Senator Jeffrey D. Klein has introduced a bill to make the penalties for cyberbullying much stronger. In a written statement, Klein’s office said: “Tragically, we’re seeing modern technology used as a weapon and our laws have not kept pace with that technology. This legislation will give prosecutors the tools they need to treat cyberbullying as the crime it is and also send a message that this type of reckless and potentially deadly behavior will not be tolerated.”

Among other things, it would fully address the idea of using electronic communication to harass or stalk someone. The bill would make the following changes to current law:
# Include bullying of a youth by electronic communications a crime of Third Degree Stalking
# Include electronic communications as a form of Aggravated Harassment.
# It would also provide hate crime status to certain types of cyberbullying.

According to the Huffington Post, Senator Diane Savino said:
“This is a new world where bullying, once confined to the school yard, now follows its victims wherever the Internet goes. Before there is another tragedy, we need to treat cyberbullying as the crime that it is.” Amanda Cummings killed herself by jumping in front of a bus two days before Christmas. It came out after she was in the hospital that there were a group of kids at school who bullied her incessantly. They stole her stuff and taunted her all the time, even online, even while she lay dying. Shortly after she dies, her mother went on her Facebook page and wrote “This is to all you evil son of a bitches that picked on, talked about and threatened my baby. I HOPE YOU DIE and I HOPE YOU SUFFER.”
© The Inquistr

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ANONYMOUS RELEASES 'POLISH NEO-NAZI' LIST

Politicians associated with the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party are included on a list of “Polish neo-nazis” uploaded onto the internet by the Anonymous hacking group.

10/1/2012- The data is part a trove of information, including emails, passwords and credit card details hacked by the Anonymous collective over the past few weeks, including data taken from the US-based Stratfor security analyst company over the Christmas period. The hacking collective says the aim of the campaign is to give "neo-nazis a good spanking". Around 450 names and details of Polish citizens are included in the data haul in the protest action codenamed Operation Blitzkrieg. Anonymous have also released details of far-right activists in Finland and Germany. White supremacist groups from the UK and US are also included on the list of names, published on the nazi-leaks.net web site, based in Germany and re-published on the Polish-based antifa-buzz.net. The Annonymous hackers obtained the information by hacking into web sites of far-right groups, forums and online fascist music shops.

Included on the Polish list are activists from the far-right National Polish Rebirth (NOP) but also politicians associated with the opposition Law and Justice party. Pawel Kura from the south eastern city of Lublin is included on the hacked list, a 32 year-old former assistant to Law and Justice MP Piotr Cybulski. Kura is now working as party treasurer in the Legnica district. Local Law and Justice party chief El¿bieta Witek confirmed to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily that Kura is a party member. “I am very surprised [about the news] but I do not know this man personally,” she said. Kura himself has categorically denied any connections to far-right groups. “I have never marched with fascists, never visited fascist music shops, or took part in forums,” he says. Asked why he was included on the list he said: “I have no idea. I am in shock.” “Maybe someone has been impersonating me to discredit me,” he adds.
© The News - Poland

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CRITICISM MOUNTS AGAINST ANTI-NAZI WEBSITE (Germany)

A group of online activists associated with the loose-knit hacker collective Anonymous has set its sights on Germany's far-right scene. But its method of publishing private information in its raw form, creating the potential for further abuse, has drawn criticism from both its supporters and targets.

10/1/2012- The activist says that he and his associates were prompted to act by revelations in early November that a neo-Nazi terror group calling itself the National Socialist Underground (NSU) had apparently murdered at least 10 people in a seven-year killing spree. The activist is hard to get a hold of. For him, speaking on the phone is too risky, and emailing even more so. Instead, he prefers to communicate via encrypted online chats. A little over a week ago, he and some friends launched a new Internet portal, nazi-leaks.net (German only), advertising it as "Operation Blitzkrieg." The site aims to publish hacked confidential data, much like Julian Assange's whistleblowing platform WikiLeaks. But, in this case, the platform is a place for amassing confidential information about the far-right scene in Germany.

During an online chat, the anonymous activist says that there is a team of "five to 10" individuals behind the platform, and that they have brought together several data sets, many of which have previously been published elsewhere. These have included the names of alleged donors to Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD), internal NPD emails, a list of contacts from the right-wing weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit and customer data from neo-Nazi online stores. The activist adds that he and his associates decided "it would be appropriate to simply offer everything in one central place." When asked who is behind this campaign and what the group aims to achieve, the activist simply types "We are Anonymous" before signing off. Computer activists and hackers working as part of the loose-knit collective called Anonymous have been making headlines for years. But Operation Blitzkrieg marks the first time that individuals associating themselves with the group have launched a large-scale campaign specifically against targets in Germany.

More Militant Approach
One of the first Anonymous campaigns targeted the Church of Scientology. Over time, the group has grown to become an international online protest movement with many voices, all of which remain true to the mantra that "anyone can be anonymous." But one of the consequences of this open, decentralized and fluid structure is that an increasing number of people have adopted the group's name and symbols when conducting radical and sometimes almost militant campaigns. In fact, the movement is becoming broadly synonymous with digital vandalism of all stripes. Until recently, a project like nazi-leaks.net wouldn't have quite fit the activists' profile. The Anonymous movement's established method of protesting had been a modern version of sit-ins or street blockades: They paralyzed websites by using a simple program that sends a huge volume of pointless inquiries until their servers are shut down, in what are called denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.

In December 2010, the group attracted significant attention as well as a certain degree of appreciation. At the time, US-based companies including PayPal and Visa had been refusing to process donations to accounts owned by WikiLeaks, controversial in the US owing to its publication of US diplomatic cables. To retaliate, members of the hacker collective promptly launched Operation Payback, which temporarily paralyzed the websites of the financial service providers. Early last summer, some activists pressed for an even more militant approach. To them, it was no longer enough to merely put their victims' websites out of action. They split off into a hacker group called LulzSec, which actively penetrated company computers and posted the raw data it had captured online.

This "hack and leak" method has apparently become acceptable within the Anonymous movement, because it is exactly what happened in late December, when they triggered an uproar by attacking US-based global security group Stratfor. Just last week, more than 800,000 usernames and passwords obtained in the attack, as well as the credit-card data of tens of thousands of people, were published in the name of the collective. Since many users have the same password for various services, this inevitably opens the door for further abuse. It would also appear that the collective approves of Operation Blitzkrieg. The operation -- and links for accessing the data it has collected -- can be found on the long lists of Anonymous operations currently ongoing around the world.

Methods in Question
But this trend toward increasingly aggressive actions is costing the movement the respect it had earned among the online community through campaigns such as "Operation Syria," against the Syrian government, and Operation Payback. This has nothing to do with the targets that have been selected, since members of the scene certainly view neo-Nazis as fitting targets for hacker attacks. At issue are their methods, particularly the publication of unfiltered private information that serves no obvious public benefit. And this while shielded by a mask without taking responsibility for their actions. The German Federation of Journalists (DJV) has criticized the collective's lack of journalistic rigor. The group has even been condemned by "Netz gegen Nazis," or "Net against Nazis," an online portal run by the Berlin-based Amadeu Antonio Foundation, which aims to combat right-wing extremism and racism.

Meanwhile, members of the established hacker community already have rather critical views of Anonymous. For example, among the eight basic "hacker ethics" of the Chaos Computer Club, an influential German hacker organization, is the motto "exploit public data, protect private data." During the chat session, the informal spokesman for nazi-leaks.net admits that some of this is "justified criticism." He says that the group "will also improve the filters," and that some data has "already been ignored because it could not be verified." Still, the group has no regrets about its actions and plans to carry on with them. "There's more to come," he writes, adding that some of the group's targets will also be outside of Germany. In the meantime, there is growing resistance to such actions on the Internet. Since last week, there have been calls in right-wing online forums for retaliatory attacks against nazi-leaks.net. Instigators are adopting not only the methods of Anonymous, but also its rhetoric, dubbing their effort "Operation Takedown."
© The Spiegel

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NEO-NAZI RADIO PRESENTERS SENTENCED (Germany)

Eleven employees of a Neo-Nazi internet radio station were handed suspended sentences in the western German town of Koblenz Thursday. A twelfth worker was imprisoned for two years because he carried previous offences.

6/1/2012- The judge found all twelve accused guilty of supporting a criminal organization and inciting racial hatred. The station was found to have called on listeners to commit criminal acts. All of the accused admitted to working as presenters or administrators for the “Resistance Radio” station. The 42-year-old man, from Bamberg, had already been in prison for assault. His appearances on the radio station have extended his prison sentence by one year and nine months. “Resistance Radio” was on the air from July 2009 to November 2010. Seven women and five men, aged between 20 and 42, from six different German states faced charges in court. The judge said the station presented a danger to society, and that the accused had deliberately tried to recruit young people to the neo-Nazi scene. The station idealized Germany’s Nazi regime and incited violence against foreigners, Jews and leftists. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency the Verfassungsschutz spent months monitoring the station.
© The Local - Germany

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'ANONYMOUS' DECLARES 'BLITZKRIEG' ON NEO-NAZIS (Germany)

“Anonymous” hackers have declared “Blitzkrieg” on neo-Nazis for the New Year, disabling a number of their websites and publishing lists of extreme-right supporters.
2/1/2012- A “Nazi-Leaks” portal has appeared on the internet listing hundreds of names of people subscribed to various shops selling far-right clothing, as well as writers for the Junge Freiheit newspaper which carries contributions from far-right commentators. The hackers say they have managed to close down 15 websites associated with the neo-Nazi National Democratic Party (NPD), the Frankfurter Rundschau reported on Monday. They have reportedly called their campaign "Operation Blitzkrieg". The paper said that the German version of the neo-Nazi internet platform “Altermedia” was at times offline. A Twitter message addressed to those trying to get into the site wished “all Nazis and in particular Altermedia a good start to the New Year.” This was greeted by a message reported by left-wing websites as coming from Altermedia calling for information about the hackers, and offering to reward useful tips with the hackers' “amputated fingers.” The Frankfurter Rundschau said it could not check whether the comment was really from Altermedia as the site was offline. Long lists of names, some with addresses, purporting to be customer registers of firms such as the infamous Thor Steinar clothing firm were posted on the “Nazi-Leaks” portal. People listed on the portal as having written for the Junge Freiheit newspaper included Peter Scholl-Latour, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau. He is a respected journalist and Afghanistan expert who has written for, among other publications, the Stern magazines.
© The Local - Germany

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Headlines December 2011

ANTI-MUSLIM HATE SITE REMOVED AFTER CAIR'S INTERVENTION (usa,press release)

Blog contained threats of violence like 'I want [Muslim] blood on my hands'

29/12/2011- The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) announced today that an anti-Muslim Internet hate site that contained a number of threats of violence targeting mosques, including the comment "I want [Muslim] blood on my hands," has been taken down by its hosting company. CAIR said visitors to "Bare Naked Islam," hosted by WordPress.com, now see the message: "barenakedislam.wordpress.com is no longer available. This blog has been archived or suspended for a violation of our Terms of Service." [NOTE: "Bare Naked Islam" was one of the major promoters of the campaign to pressure Lowe's to drops its ads from TLC's "All-American Muslim."]

Last month, CAIR called on the FBI to investigate the threats of violence targeting mosques posted on the blog and urged WordPress.com to remove it for violating the hosting company's terms of service (TOS), which prohibit blogs that "contain threats or incite violence towards individuals or entities." Articles and comments posted on "Bare Naked Islam" urged attacks on and desecration of American and European mosques.CAIR has been monitoring "Bare Naked Islam" and filed a number of TOS violation reports with Wordpress.com. [NOTE: At CAIR's request, WordPress.com last year deleted a similar blog that contained posts advocating burning mosques, making false bomb threats implicating Muslims, desecrating Muslim graves, and recommending the "proper way to shoot a muslim [sic]."]

"We welcome the removal of such a vicious anti-Muslim hate site and thank Wordpress.com for upholding its terms of service prohibiting calls to violence by bloggers," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad. "While we are strong supporters of First Amendment rights, the encouragement of violent acts goes beyond constitutional protections of free speech." Awad said a number of recent reports have documented the growth and promotion of Islamophobia nationwide.
CAIR is America's largest Muslim civil liberties and advocacy organization. Its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.
© PR Newswire

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WEBSITE POST PROMPTS FEARS OF ONLINE ANTI-SEMITISM IN ROME (Italy)

27/12/2011- Posts targeting Italian Jews on a virulently anti-Semitic website have prompted alarm. The website HolyWar.org late last week ran photographs of nine prominent Italian Jews, calling them “Nazi-Jewish members of the Italian Jewish mafia cupola” and “slaves of Satan” who want to destroy the Roman Catholic church. The pictures were copied from a list of contributors to the website of the Rome Jewish community. A statement from the Rome Jewish Community said it had reported the matter to the Italian postal police. HolyWar subsequently removed the page. For some time, anti-Judaism, especially that expressed online, has assumed ever more aggressive tones,” the community statement said. “HolyWar is one of the most virulently anti-Jewish websites, full of sections that are all built around one theme: a fierce anti-Semitism that is exuded from every page.” Among other things, the site includes numerous anti-Semitic cartoons, the text of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and documents accusing Jews of ritual murder. The Rome Jewish Community statement said that HolyWar is run by a Norwegian, Alfred Olsen. Renato Gattegna, president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, called the HolyWar posts “disgusting and unacceptable ravings” that had made “dark threats” against contributors to the Rome Jewish community website. He warned that “a dangerous campaign of hatred and criminal incitement” was under way.
© JTA News

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THREAT ISSUE POPS UP ON SOCIAL MEDIA (usa)

Social media platforms such as Facebook make staying in touch quick and easy, but they also serve as a ubiquitous outlet for bullying and threats.

20/12/2011- The News has learned of a situation where threats of serious violence against a Mount Vernon High School student have been made on Facebook by a Knox County Career Center student. Other MVHS students are taking the threat seriously and want to protect their schoolmate. School authorities and the involved students’ parents have been informed of the situation, said Mount Vernon superintendent Steve Short. “We do get notifications a lot of times of what takes place on Facebook from our students,” said Short. “We’ve investigated [this particular situation]. We are working with different agencies including the police. We deal with Facebook messages, Facebook things every day. We have notified the proper authorities. We are working with different authorities and all the people who are involved to make sure our students are safe.”

Chip McConville, assistant county prosecutor, said those types of things are reported to his office from time to time. “If somebody thinks it’s serious, they ought to take it to the police,” he said. “If there’s a threat, that’s something that can be taken to the police. School administrators are not the Facebook police, nor should they be made to be. We shouldn’t have school resources put into this unless there’s some kind of threat that violence is going to occur at school.” Detective Jeff Jacobs of the Mount Vernon Police Department, without revealing specifics, said incidents such as the one mentioned above are investigated the same as any other case of telecommunications harassment.

“The hard part, of course, with any of the social networking,” he said, “is pinpointing the person who is claiming to have done it. You have to go back and go through IP addresses and Facebook and actually be able to prove that person was the actual perpetrator and on the computer at that time. Someone could have used someone else’s computer, or hacked into it, or someone could be pretending to be someone else. You have to prove who actually did it. It’s not like you talked to them on the phone so you recognize their voice. Normally telecommunications harassment would be a misdemeanor, but if the content is a threat which could be classified a hate crime, it would be stepped up to a felony.”
© Mount Vernon News

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NEO-NAZI WEBSITE POSTS BLACK LIST ,ROME TO INVESTIGATE NEO-NAZI GROUP (Italy)

20/12/2011- The neo-Nazi website Stormfront, the Italian offshoot of the organization led by the former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Don Black, has posted a list of politicians, judges and priests who look after immigrants. This initiative started with a member of the forum called Costantino saying, "We are accused of racism against immigrants, and that we hate them for no reason, but Italians too commit crimes. I want to prove that I do not hate foreigners, but that I hate some Italians much more. This is why I wish to open this debate and collect the names of Italians who commit crimes, who help immigrants and profit from this." The long list was drafted with help from other members of the on-line forum.

Rome to investigate neo-Nazi group
23/12/2011- Rome prosecutors opened an investigation Friday into a neo-Nazi group that allegedly compiled a blacklist of religious figures, politicians and journalists. The organization, called Stormfront, is described as a branch of the international body founded by Don Black, former head of the Ku Klux Klan, Italian news agency ANSA reported. The blacklist created by Stormfront reportedly includes the Bishop of Turin Monsignor Cesare Nosiglia; Riccardo Pacifici, the president of the Jewish Community in Rome; Adel Smith, the president of the Muslim Union of Italy, and journalists Gad Lerner and Maurizio Costanzo. The daily La Repubblica reported those on the list have been targeted because of their support for immigrants.
United Press International
© AGI News

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NEW 'MYTHBUSTER' WEBSITE TO FIGHT RACISM IN SWEDEN

The Swedish government has launched a new website to combat the proliferation of inaccurate and racist myths about minorities and immigrants in Sweden.

19/12/2011- “Extremism has found a new forum which is also very effective when it comes to spreading myths and prejudice,” integration minister Erik Ullenhag of the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) writes in an opinion piece published Monday in the Dagens Nyheter (DN) newspaper. Ullenhag cites a report issued earlier in the year by the Forum for Living History (Forum för levande historia) which found there had been a dramatic increase in the number of racist websites in Sweden in recent years. While racism is hardly a new phenomenon, writes Ullenhag, racist myths and stereotypes have found a new foothold on the web, and must be addressed there. “Prejudice will be met with the facts that exist,” he writes. The new site, regeringen.se/tolerans, attempts to debunk a number of “common internet myths about immigrants and minorities”. “One always needs to engage in debates about xenophobia and prejudice,” writes Ullenhag, who also warns of the dangers of “the silence of forces for good”. Among the myths addressed on the website are claims that Sweden will soon be a Muslim country, that Swedes are on their way to becoming a minority in their own country, and that Swedish children are no longer allowed to eat pork in school. In announcing the launch of the new website, Ullenhag goes on to explain that a number of the myths addressed on the site have “even found their way into debates in the Riksdag”. “We can therefore see how internet prejudices can be found in the political debate,” writes Ullenhag.
© The Local - Sweden

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NYPD FACEBOOK PROBE INTO RACISM RAISES FREE SPEECH QUESTION (usa)

16/12/2011- The Facebook group was titled "No More West Indian Day Detail," referring to police patrol for a raucous annual Brooklyn parade. Sprinkled among the frustrations aired about regulating the crowded, loud, often-violent event were comments that were more offensive. Some called the parade, held in a predominantly black neighborhood, "ghetto training" and a "scheduled riot." Others referred to participants as savages. The West Indian Day Parade celebrates the culture of the Caribbean islands and is one of the city's largest outdoor events. Food carts with spicy dishes and fresh fruit crowd a stately parkway, and dancers shimmy, wearing revealing feathered costumes. But it's often surrounded by violence. Following the parade this year, a woman was shot to death while sitting on her stoop with her daughter, as police exchanged gunfire nearby with an armed man who had opened fire on another person moments before. Others were shot to death during celebrations in 2003 and 2005. "Maybe next year they should hold it on Riker's Island," one of the Facebook posts read, referring to the city's main jail.

Charges could be brought
At least 20 such comments made on the page may have come from police officers, New York Police Department officials said. Internal affairs detectives are interviewing officers under oath and getting subpoenas for computer records. Departmental charges could be brought, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. He said the department can discipline behavior determined to be unbecoming of a police officer or detrimental to the service -- and that includes online outbursts. "It is disturbing when anyone denigrates a community with hateful speech. It is unacceptable when police officers do it," Kelly said in a statement. But the posts, however embarrassing or outrageous, also raise a First Amendment issue about whether officers should watch what they say, online and off.

Free to express opinions
Government employees must be able to express their opinions, said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. Unlike private employees, governmental employees like police officers and firefighters are protected under the First Amendment that says the government can't restrict free speech. "That comes into play not only when we like what they have to say, but also when they say obnoxious, disgusting and hateful things," she said. Police officers are naturally guarded, and don't often talk about the job, at least not publicly. Thee Rant, an online forum where writers air angry and occasionally bigoted grievances about the nation's largest department and the city it serves, is anonymous. But in the Facebook group, comments with names and photos were posted in arguably the most public of online forums. Some used the NYPD shield as their profile image. Even some of those who wrote in cautioned about being too explicit, and warned that the department was watching. None of the people whose names were associated with the posts replied to attempts to contact them for comment.

'Stay off social networks'
The city's largest police union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, has long urged members to avoid social networks. In a union magazine column called "Tweeting all cops: Stay off those social networking sites," treasurer Joseph Alejandro said technology simply presents problems for police that it doesn't for civilians. "Using these technologies can present a real risk to police officers' careers because information posted on them can easily be misrepresented and used against an officer," he wrote. Police departments around the country prohibit officers to make any statements that have anything to do with work, said Maria Haberfeld, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York. The officers know this when they join, and, like the military, they should abide by the rules, she said. If the posts were from officers, then they violated the rules. "It's a very political profession," she said. "It's a public profession. It's not just seen as one officer doing it; it's seen as coming from the department."

Facebook group taken offline
The Facebook group, which had more than a thousand supporters, has been taken offline, but copies of the posts were made public by lawyers who used the remarks in the trial of a Brooklyn man who was arrested before last year's parade. The majority of the posts centered on concern about violence at the parade, frustration about what they said was unchecked lawlessness , while other city parades staged in more notable locales, like Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, were policed more fervently. "Why doesn't NYPD brass utilize crowd control techniques like they do at Times Square on New Year's? I know it won't stop the guns, but it can control the crowds," one writer suggested. The police department has not specifically addressed concerns made in the post other than the statement issued by Kelly noting the entire matter was under investigation. Even within the group's posts were messages urging caution: "Please keep it focused. This is not a racist rant. This is about us, the cops," one post read. Lawyers with the Brooklyn Defender Services, a nonprofit public defender service, used the posts to argue the officer who arrested Tyronne Johnson in 2010 in the early morning hours before the rowdy parade may have been biased. The officer was a member of the Facebook group, but didn't post anything. That link was first reported by The New York Times. Johnson was acquitted last month.
© The Associated Press

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CONTROVERSIAL LAWS TARGETING SECTARIAN HATE CRIME AT FOOTBALL PASSED (Scotland)

The SNP majority at the Scottish Parliament pushed through the legislation aimed at tackling sectarian crime at football despite opposition to it.

14/12/2011- Controversial laws intended to crack down on hate crime at football matches have been pushed through the Scottish Parliament despite opposition to it. Football fans protesting against the bill turned out at Holyrood to highlight their opposition to it before it was passed through by the SNP majority on Wednesday. The Offensive Behaviour at Football and Threatening Communications will mean that offenders can receive a maximum five-year prison sentence for two new crimes. The first offence is aimed at targeted any offensive and threatening behaviour expressed at and around football matches which is likely to cause public disorder.

While a second offence created on Wednesday relates to the communication of threats of serious harm or which are intended to stir up religious hatred on the internet or other communications. While the SNP championed the new legislation as bringing Scotland into the 21st century, all of the opposition parties at Holyrood voted against the proposals during a heated debate. Community Safety Minister Roseanna Cunningham welcomed the passing of new law. She said:"This Bill sends out an important message about the kind of Scotland we want to live in, because the vast majority of people in this country have no time whatsoever for the kind of mindless bigotry that has attached itself to the small minority who only damage and undermine our beautiful game - or those who peddle hatred by sitting behind a computer screen posting threats of harm on the internet.

"This is the 21st century, and this kind of behaviour is simply not acceptable, so action had to be taken. The passing of these important new laws sends out a powerful message to the bigots that this behaviour will not be tolerated in a modern Scotland. "The police and the Lord Advocate, the most senior law officer in Scotland, now have the additional tools they have asked for to do their difficult job.” She added: "The message today is, by all means enjoy the banter and passionate support for your football teams, even passionate opposition of other football teams - it is the lifeblood of football. But sectarianism and other expressions of hate are not acceptable and it is time for it to stop. From now on, those engaging in it will face the full force of the law."

Labour, Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, Greens and Independent MSP Margo MacDonald issued a joint statement after the vote at Holyrood. It read: "Members of all political parties are determined to wipe the blight of sectarianism from Scottish society. It is of real regret that the first piece of legislation passed by this new parliament has been railroaded through by the SNP. "The SNP has used its majority to force through bad law that risks doing more harm than good. It sets a worrying precedent for this parliament. "The SNP has failed to make the case for the legislation both in parliament and out, with football fans, religious organisations, anti-sectarianism organisations, children's charities, the Law Society, the Human Rights Commission and the Scottish Justices Association all raising genuine concerns with the SNP legislation. "We believe a far more effective response is to focus on education and young people, working with the churches and football authorities on positive, practical, evidence-based measures that tackle the root causes of sectarianism, as well as robust application of existing laws."

Anti-sectarianism charity Nil By Mouth’s campaign director Dave Scott said that the bill would not necessarily wipe out the bigoted offending. He added: "The debate around this bill has polarised the political parties but it has now become law and time will tell how effective and enforceable it proves to be. "However sectarianism goes far beyond football and Facebook. It exists in our institutions, workplaces, communities, and homes and the real battleground is not the terraces, but the hearts and minds of our people. "We do want to see another generation lost to the battles of the past so it is vital that we now focus on identifying, and challenging, the root causes of sectarianism."

© STV

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FREE SPEECH BOOST WILL RALLY NEO-NAZI CYBERHATE, SAY HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVISTS (Canada)

14/12/2011- A section of Canada's human rights code that protects against hate speech on the Internet is under attack on two fronts just as three accused neo-Nazis in British Columbia face charges of vicious, racist assaults. An appeal got underway in Federal Court in Toronto this week scrutinizing Section 13 of the Human Rights Act, which says it's discriminatory to spread hate messages online. The case pits human rights advocates against defenders of free expression. Meanwhile, federal Tories are seeking to kill the provision via a private member's bill in the House of Commons. But those who keep an eye on incidents of hate and the so-called white pride movement are worried if those provisions of the act are killed, Canada could see more incidents like the setting on fire of a Filipino man on Vancouver street.

Police recently announced the arrests of two men in their 20s and a 30-year old in connection with that assault and three others against minorities in Vancouver. Investigators allege the trio are members of Blood and Honour, a white supremacist group linked to violence around the world. All three suspects have provincial court dates on Dec. 23. "Even after individual members are arrested for these kinds of degenerate crimes, they have a persistent ability to attract new recruits," said Richard Warman, who is one of three parties in the appeal case and contends Section 13 must stay intact. The Internet now disseminates the racists' rallying call, he said. "That's why it has to be a constant concern not just for police, but the community and the government as a whole," he said in an interview.

Statistics Canada found Canadian police forces reported a rise of 42 per cent in hate-based incidents in 2009, as compared to 2008, and more than half were based on race. The year before, there was a 35 per cent jump. The figures are the most recently available and were released in June. Warman has used the provision on 15 occasions to mount successful complaints, mostly against people accused of agitating online for ethnic cleansing. But his record was turned on its head in 2009, when the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruled in favour of a right-wing extremist webmaster. The tribunal, which only handles cases referred to it by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, found Marc Lemire exposed homosexuals and blacks to hatred and contempt by publishing an article entitled "AIDS Secrets." But the tribunal also ruled it was unconstitutional to penalize him.

The commission is seeking the appeal. Eight other groups are participating as interveners, including B'Nai Brith Canada and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association. "The BCCLA takes the position that the Internet is a democratic medium where hateful expression should be published so as to provide a forum for its refutation and denunciation," the association said in a news release. The group was to make its oral arguments in the case Wednesday. But regardless of the judicial outcome, Warman and other anti-racism experts contend the most wrong-headed move is being made in Ottawa.

A private member's bill introduced earlier this session by Alberta Tory backbencher Brian Storseth seeks to repeal the legislation. Though private member's bills rarely make it into law, in November, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson stood up in the House and urged all MPs to support the motion, saying it's "not an appropriate or effective means of combating hate propaganda. "We believe the Criminal Code is the best vehicle to prosecute these crimes." A spokeswoman for Nicholson declined comment while the case is before the courts. Other proponents of free speech want the law axed too. "The best defence against so-called 'hate speech' is not government enforcement of vague prohibitions, but an educated and alert citizenry and vigilant and responsible media," Charles Foran, president of PEN Canada, said in a news release.

In 2008, a University of Windsor law professor sounded the death knell in a report specifically commissioned by the human rights commission. He argued the criminal code is a sufficient prosecution tool. "We must develop ways other than censorship to respond to expression that stereotypes and defames the members of an identifiable group," he said in his report. Warman, however, contends there is a "near impossibility" of securing criminal charges for hate propaganda, and that supporters of the bill "are in effect arguing for no controls on hate speech in Canada." Vancouver-based Alan Dutton helped lobby for the 1996 creation of the B.C. Hate Crime Team that brings together law enforcement, Crown prosecutors and provincial bureaucrats to combat hate crimes. Dutton argues abolishing the law will embolden hatemongers to re-organize and strengthen the white nationalist movement in Canada.

"The danger here is that they're going to believe that they have fertile ground now," said Dutton, who chairs the Canadian Anti-Racism Education and Research Society. Several high-profile cases of hate-based violence overseas and in Canada further fuel his concerns, he said. In Regina, resident Terry Tremaine — who claims to lead the unregistered National-Socialist Party of Canada — defied a court order in early November to remove offensive material from his own website. A neo-Nazi march was held last March in Calgary. "When they see the groups are able to mobilize so massively in Europe, they're going to feel they can do the same thing here in Canada," Dutton said. A vote on the bill is expected in early spring.
© The Winnipeg Free Press

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NO DECISION AS WEB HATE SPEECH CASE ENDS (Canada)

13/12/2011- A federal court review of Canada’s Internet hate speech law ended without a decision Wednesday, with the judge hinting he might have been persuaded to consider overturning the law, rather than stick to the narrow legal issues put forth by the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Mr. Justice Richard Mosley also had harsh words for the federal government, which withdrew from the case — a constitutional review of Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, within the hate speech prosecution of Freedomsite webmaster Marc Lemire by activist lawyer Richard Warman. The government’s absence is “unusual and regrettable,” the judge said. Section 13 “is federal legislation. The Attorney General should be here. The Attorney General should take a position, as it appears he did at the [Canadian Human Rights] Tribunal.”

Rob Nicholson, the Justice Minister, does take a position. The problem is that it is exactly the opposite position he took in 2008, when Mr. Lemire’s case was before the tribunal, and the Conservatives held a vulnerable parliamentary minority. Then, he intervened to support Section 13. Now, with a majority, Mr. Nicholson has urged Parliament to back a private member’s bill that could repeal it next year. Passed by Parliament in 1977 to combat telephone hate lines, and expanded to the Internet in 2001, Section 13 bans repeated messages that are likely to expose protected groups to hatred or contempt. In the age of the Internet, it has been used almost exclusively by Mr. Warman, a former CHRC employee who has seen 15 hate speech cases through to a conclusion, usually with a financial penalty, a cease and desist order, and occasionally payments to himself to compensate for retaliation.

Judge Mosley said he is tempted to wait for the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in the similar case of William Whatcott, which will re-analyze Canada’s main legal precedent on hatred. But that could be months away and he might decide on Section 13’s constitutionality before then. The CHRT found Mr. Lemire had violated Section 13 by posting a racist, homophobic article called AIDS Secrets, written by someone else, which he removed as soon as he was told of the complaint. That willingness to resolve the complaint, however, coupled with the CHRC and Mr. Warman’s refusal to agree to mediation, led Athanasios Hadjis, a tribunal member, to conclude in 2009 Section 13 was no longer a reasonable limit on freedom of expression, as the Supreme Court decided in 1990.

Once remedial and conciliatory, the law had become punitive, he decided. He made no order against Mr. Lemire, and cast Section 13 into limbo. Margot Blight, the CHRC’s lawyer, argued the commission’s actions alone cannot invalidate a law and the judge must confine himself to the narrow issues raised in her request for judicial review. These focus on whether Mr. Hadjis should have upheld the basic law, and simply “read out,” or ignored, the penalty provisions. Barbara Kulaszka, Mr. Lemire’s lawyer, said the judge can and should reconsider all of Section 13. She argued Mr. Hadjis could have reached the same conclusion on different grounds, namely that expanding the law to include Internet has drastically changed the constitutional questions, as the Supreme Court understood them in 1990. She said recorded telephone messages simply do not compare to the participatory style of the web.

Section 13 is a “truly despicable law, enforced in a despicable way,” with federal bureaucrats acting in the manner of Crown prosecutors, she added. “If it wasn’t for Richard Warman, Section 13 would basically be dead, because Canadians love the Internet, the back and forth… the freedom of speech it represents.” Ms. Kulaszka compared Section 13, and its supposed 100% conviction rate, to Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, which did not sit well with Judge Mosley. “Let’s not get carried away with hyperbole. Some comparisons are offensive,” he said. “Counsel should know this and restrain yourself.”
© The National Post

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FACEBOOK TOLERATES RACISM DISGUISED AS HUMOR (Czech Rep.)

15/12/2011- News server Lidovky.cz is reporting that a Czech-language group calling itself "Crude racist jokes with racist and xenophobic content" ("Drsné a rasistické vtipy s rasistickým a xenofobním obsahem") has launched on Facebook. Almost 40 000 Facebook users have joined the profile, which may soon become one of the top 100 most popular Czech-language pages on the social networking site. The Facebook profile officially presents itself as entertaining. “This page, which contains crude jokes, serves only for entertainment," the introductory page reads. The content, however, is not very amusing. “You are the winner of a young Gypsy. If you don't pick him up within 14 days, he will be delivered to you together with his family," reads one of the "jokes" users of the page can entertain themselves with. Page administrators also victoriously posted that “88 people like this page :) a magic number :)". The number 88 stands for the Nazi greeting "Heil Hitler" in neo-Nazi circles. In addition to numerous insults against Romani people, the page also attacks black people, gay people, Jewish people and transsexual people. “What purpose do such beings serve on earth?" the page operators ask underneath a photograph of a transvestite. "...to be shot and set on fire..." one user comments.

The profile has already been reported to Facebook by many people as problematic but continues to operate undisturbed for the time being. “It is striking that as of today this page has not yet been banned and the administrators are not prosecuting anyone for it, because this behavior is illegal," one Facebook user complains. Lawyer Klára Kalibová says the offended Facebook user is correct. Kalibová says that from a legal point of view, the content posted by the operators of the page is not as problematic as the comments posted by some users, which both explicitly and implicitly call for violence. "Those comments meet the necessary criteria to be classified as felonies, such as defamation of a race, nation or faith, or incitement of hatred against members of a particular group," she said. "The internet, from a legal standpoint, is the same kind of space as a book. It just differs with respect to how the perpetrators of the felonies can be prosecuted. There are cases of people being convicted over making racist posts on Facebook," the lawyer warns. Individual users are, moreover, easily apprehended thanks to being identified by name. There are several Czech-language racist pages on Facebook with dozens or hundreds of users. However, the "Drsné a rasistické vtipy" profile is by far the most popular.
© Romea

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CYBER BULLYING ON THE RISE AMONG STUDENTS (Czech Rep)

12/12/2011- Every twelfth Czech secondary school pupil has come across cyber bullying, according to a poll conducted by the company Commservis and released yesterday. One in 33 adult persons has had some experience with bullying through SMS or e-mail messages, the poll has found. The situation in the Czech Republic is somewhat better than elsewhere in Europe or the USA, experts said, adding that no one can be punished over cyber bullying. The poll was conducted on a sample of 745 Czechs aged 15-18 and 1061 respondents aged 19-45. "There is an interesting finding that students did not know very well the notion of cyber bullying and could not imagine what it means," expert Tomas Zdechovsky said. "Only after it was explained to them what the notion means, they found out that they knew what it meant and that they had personally encountered cyber bullying, Zdechovsky said. Cyber bullying involves offensive SMS and e-mail messages, ridiculing the victims at social networks and blogs as well as placing of delicate video recordings featuring the victims on the Internet. Special pedagogue Eva Fruwirthova said an increasing number of teachers were victims of cyber bullying. There is no law punishing cyber bullying in the Czech Republic. Last year, 1.5 million flyers warning of cyber bullying were distributed at Czech schools.
© The Prague Daily Monitor

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MOHAMMED SANDIA SENTENCED FOR POSTING ANTISEMITIC COMMENTS ON THE SCOTSMAN WEBSITE (uk)

9/12/2011- On 1st March 2008, the Scotsman website hosted the following, supposedly commenting on remarks made by an Israeli Government Minister about rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza: "jews are not fit to breathe our air. They must be attacked wherever you see them; throw rocks at their ugly, hooked-nosed women and mentally ill children, and light up the REAL ovens." We complained to the editor, who did not respond. We also reported this and other undisguised antisemitic comments on both Scotsman and Herald websites to the Press Complaints Commission which, however, dismissed the complaint on two grounds: firstly that the comments did not defame any individual, and secondly that they could not adjudicate on editorial discretion since none had been exercised! In addition we wrote to all MSPs and Ministers, many of whom also wrote to the editors to condemn their allowing the comments to appear. The First Minister and the then Lord Advocate both wrote to editors to remind them of their responsibility to monitor their websites. Speaking recently at a public meeting, the current Lord Advocate reiterated Crown Office's view that the media have a responsibility not be a conduit for hatred.

Meanwhile, the police were investigating the source of the above comment. Although he initially pled not guilty, he later changed his plea to guilty and his defence lawyer claimed in mitigation that his client was "a man with a great interest in world affairs and politics, and an ardent supporter of the Palestinian cause". When he added that Sandia had not done anything to incite violence, the Sheriff interrupted to ask whether his call for Jews to be attacked and stoned could be "suggestive of anything other than violence?" When he first appeared for sentencing in November 2010, the Sheriff told him that "You clearly have hate in you, and I pity you for that. ... I am concerned to protect the public, and it is clear to me that a custodial sentence is appropriate." He said he did not, however, have the power to impose a significantly lengthy sentence, and that a light sentence "would only have the effect of turning you, in your own eyes, and in the eyes of your supporters, into a martyr. I choose not to do that." He therefore deferred sentence for a year, warning that "This does not mean you will escape custodial sentence, but that the possibility will be hanging over you for twelve months", and adding that the eventual sentence would depend on community reports about him which would be commissioned by the court.

When Sandia returned to court last month, an up-to-date background report had not been prepared, and sentence was again deferred until 9th December. On this occasion, the Sheriff said that although Sandia had "caused great hurt and damage to others" Sandia had been of good behaviour during the last year. Observing that Sandia had "paid by being subject to scrutiny", and further that he was unemployed and in poor health, and had already been put to the expense of travelling to Edinburgh to attend court on four occasions, the Sheriff admonished him. This is a warning which is a conviction and appears on the offender's criminal record. Although the Sheriff decided against imposing a substantive penalty, we welcome his outspoken condemnation of Sandia's outrageous and abhorrent postings on the Scotsman website as a clear signal that the law will not tolerate the abuse of freedom of speech to spread hatred.

We were appalled when the PCC refused to take any action in this case, and given the significant attention being paid to regulation of the media, we trust that this conviction will help prevent newspaper websites being used for the promotion of more racism and incitement in the future. It is worthy of note that Sandia was charged with publishing his comments at the newspaper's address in Edinburgh, despite the fact that he posted his comments from London and the offence they caused was in Glasgow. The Community Security Trust (CST) believes that this prosecution was unprecedented, and breaks new ground in establishing that the distributed nature of the internet does not offer protection from prosecution. For that reason, the case figures prominently in last week's report on Antisemitic Discourse from the CST which regards it as one of the worst examples of antisemitic hate-speech of the year.

Although Scotland is generally a comfortable place for Jews to live, the publication only the previous week of Government statistics that show that Jews are between 5 and 20 times more likely than others to the victims of racially aggravated crime has to give pause for reflection. Sadly, this case comes only a few months after a St Andrews student was convicted and expelled for a racist attack on a Jewish fellow-student. These cases give the lie to those who say it doesn't happen here, and Scotland should therefore be extremely proud of our police and prosecution authorities for taking decisive action against antisemitic comments on the internet and in the media. We should never forget that the Holocaust did not begin with gas-chambers and death camps, but with name-calling, graffiti, boycotts, and degradation. Like the Nazis, their successors also might begin by attacking Jews or Muslims, but their hatred continually expands to new targets that they regard as "not fit to breathe our air". So soon after Remembrance Sunday, we should all remember what it was that those we honoured gave their lives for, and resolve to stand up against all these pedlars of hate.
© The Scottish Council of Jewish Communities

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PETITION TO PARDON COMPUTER PIONEER ALAN TURING STARTED (uk)

An online petition calling for the government to posthumously pardon Alan Turing and quash his conviction for gross indecency has been launched.

7/12/2011- The gay computer pioneer was convicted of the offence in 1952, when homosexual acts were illegal in the UK. Two years later, he died from cyanide poisoning, which an inquest ruled was suicide. The e-petition said his treatment and death "remains a shame on the UK government and UK history". Alan Turing worked as part of the team which cracked the Enigma code at Bletchley Park in World War II and went on to help create the world's first modern computer, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine. He also invented a test for artificial intelligence, which is still used in computer science. In 2009 thousands of people signed a Downing Street petition calling for a posthumous government apology to Turing. The then prime minister Gordon Brown responded by saying he was sorry for the "appalling" way Turing was treated for being gay. The new petition said that "Alan Turing was driven to a terrible despair and early death by the nation he'd done so much to save". "A pardon can go some way to healing this damage. It may act as an apology to many of the other gay men, not as well known as Alan Turing, who were subjected to these laws," it said. E-petitions allow any UK resident to lobby for a debate on the government website. If the petition is signed by at least 100,000 people it becomes eligible for discussion in the House of Commons.
© BBC News

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ONCE EPIC HATE SPEECH CASE WHIMPERS TO UNFORESEEN ANTI-CLIMAX (Canada)

9/12/2011- The hate speech complaint by Richard Warman against Marc Lemire and his Freedomsite had all the makings of an epic legal blockbuster, and was long seen as fated for the Supreme Court of Canada. Pitting a human rights lawyer with a perfect record on hate cases against a major player in online hate propaganda, the case drew interventions from across a wide ideological spectrum, including the federal Conservative government, which as a minority defended the very law it now intends to repeal as a majority. That law, Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which bans repeated online messages that are likely to expose identifiable groups to hatred or contempt, dates to the 1970s, when Canada sought to implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by enacting anti-hate laws of its own, in response to the perceived threat of telephone hate hotlines.

Decades later, in the age of the Internet, Warman v. Lemire became the scaffold on which Canada’s modern hate speech debate was built. With lurid tales of computer hacking, lawyer stalking, and Nazi posing, the case allowed Section 13 to expand from a fringe concern into an Internet phenomenon, a blogging crusade, a media scandal and a politically toxic parliamentary hot potato. But as it reaches the Federal Court next week, for an appeal by the Canadian Human Rights Commission of Mr. Lemire’s successful constitutional challenge of Section 13, the case has come to an unforeseen anti-climax, eight years after it began. Like a Seinfeld episode written by Franz Kafka, next week’s hearing is a trial about nothing. Three parties and eight intervenors have staked out positions on all sides of the hate speech issue, but nothing they say is likely to have any bearing on Section 13’s fate.

In all likelihood, the law will either be killed by Parliament in a vote on a private member’s bill early next year, or the precedent on which it relies will be updated in the case of William Whatcott, an anti-gay pamphleteer from Saskatchewan, which the Supreme Court heard in October. Either way, the central questions of next week’s appeal — how should human rights tribunals judge hate, and is Section 13 a reasonable limit on free expression — are to be answered first by greater authorities than Mr. Justice André Scott of the Federal Court. The expectation is that he will not rule before the Supreme Court does, and will therefore be obliged to follow its lead. If he waits for the parliamentary vote, which the majority Conservative government supports along with nearly all its MPs, then Judge Scott’s ruling will be of no consequence.

The Supreme Court is less predictable; Mr. Whatcott’s appeal revealed varied opinions among the seven judges who heard it. But the last time Section 13 was reviewed by the top court, it was upheld by the slimmest possible majority, with the current chief justice among the dissenters. That 1990 case, about neo-Nazi hotline operator John Ross Taylor, defined hate as “unusually strong and deep-felt emotions of detestation, calumny and vilification.” In her dissent, however, Madame Justice Beverley McLachlin said the idea of hate is “vague and subjective, capable of extension should the interpreter be so inclined.” As she put it, “Where does dislike leave off and hatred or contempt begin?”

Marvin Kurz, counsel for the intervenor B’nai Brith, said a main part of his argument next week will be for Judge Scott to wait for the decision in Whatcott, because the entire argument was about the Taylor precedent. “If the Supreme Court is going to revisit Taylor, why should Federal Court do it?” Mr. Kurz said. “If Whatcott strikes Taylor, then the underpinning of Section 13 is gone.” At the same time, he said he will argue that Section 13 is constitutional, and its problems can be solved by relatively minor adjustments, such as scrapping the penalty provision and mandatory mediation. In Mr. Lemire’s case, for example, the messages in question had been removed from the Internet by the time the complaint was filed in 2003, and Mr. Warman refused Mr. Lemire’s request for mediation before a full hearing began two years later.

Mr. Warman, a former CHRC employee, has investigated and pursued 15 Section 13 cases, more by far than any other complainant in the Internet era, and all against people who were ultimately found to be spreading hate. He has said he is doing the work that the CHRC cannot or will not do on its own, although in this case the CHRC carried the case on his behalf. Part of that work has involved posing as a racist to solicit information from target websites, and a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal chair has criticized him for this “disappointing and disturbing” online behaviour, which “could have precipitated further hate messages.” In its arguments, the CHRC is expected to argue that its own behaviour in prosecuting Section 13 cases is irrelevant to the question of the law’s constitutionality.

“No law is a panacea,” Mr. Kurz said. “Section 13 offers one remedy, and it’s been an effective remedy.” At the same time, he said, Parliament can always decide to take a new legislative approach to hate speech. To say times have changed since the 1990 Taylor precedent is an understatement. The two main changes came in 1998, when Parliament added a provision to allow fines up to $10,000 against people who breach Section 13, and in 2001, when it expanded Section 13 to include not just phones but also the Internet, in an effort to combat terrorist recruiting. The unintended effect, given the rise of the Internet as a communications medium, was that a law drafted for recorded telephone hate messages now applies to nearly every word published in Canada, including every newspaper and most books, to say nothing of blogs and message boards.

In his shocking acquittal of Mr. Lemire in 2008, Canadian Human Rights Tribunal member Athanasios Hadjis found he violated Section 13 in a single instance out of many alleged, by posting an article called “AIDS Secrets,” written by an American neo-Nazi, which called HIV “the only virus that has ‘civil rights,’ and claimed that “innocents must die, so that the sick sex games of the pervert minority can continue.” It urged people to avoid all contact with homosexuals and other minority groups. But Mr. Hadjis also found the 1998 penalty provision meant the law was no longer conciliatory and remedial, which was a key reason the Supreme Court upheld it in Taylor. It had become punitive, he decided, like a criminal law, and was therefore no longer a reasonable limit on the Charter right to free expression. As such, he refused to make any order against Mr. Lemire, and other Section 13 cases were cast into limbo. Next week’s case is the CHRC’s appeal of that decision.

The issue of punitive fines is sure to arise at the hearing, with supporters of Section 13 arguing that the proper thing for Mr. Hadjis to do was simply “read out” the penalty provision, but uphold the basic law. Another major recent change to the landscape of this legal battle is the demise of the Canadian Jewish Congress, a long-time Section 13 advocate that was absorbed this year into the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, a more conservative group that does not share the CJC’s enthusiasm for hate speech law. Shimon Fogel, CIJA’s CEO, said the organization will not participate in a “vigorous defence” of Section 13, but he declined to comment on the CJC, which technically still exists, and acted as an intervenor at the Whatcott case at the Supreme Court.

Next week, however, it appears the CJC may no longer be an active intervenor in Warman v. Lemire. Mr. Kurz, who was to argue jointly on behalf of the three Jewish groups, said he has no instructions from either the defunct CJC or the new CIJA. He said he will inform Judge Scott that his comments are only on behalf of B’nai Brith and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust Studies. One of the more remarkable results of Section 13’s peculiar legal saga, which appears to be ending not with a bang but a whimper, is that despite his extensive legal and technical work against Section 13, history will not record Mr. Lemire as the man who killed it. That nod now seems more likely to go to Brian Storseth, the backbench Tory who brought the private member’s bill, or to Mr. Whatcott.

Mr. Lemire has a long involvement with far-right, anti-immigration groups, including the openly violent and racist Heritage Front. His former girlfriend is Melissa Guille, who in 2008 was found to have breached Section 13 through her website, Canadian Heritage Alliance. In 1997, when he ran for Toronto public school trustee on a platform that was preoccupied with gay activism and called for mandatory health screening of new students and hall monitors trained in self-defence (he lost, with 2,503 votes against the winner’s 13,184), Mr. Lemire’s campaign literature listed a Toronto phone number. That same number also appeared as the contact information for Mr. Lemire’s Digital Freedom BBS (bulletin board service), an early version of an online community, which by then had been in operation about a year, distributing white pride material on CD.

The year before, Mr. Lemire’s Freedomsite.org, had been identified as the portal through which people could access websites of the Heritage Front, the Euro-Canadian Defence League and the Canadian Patriots Network. After his site was removed from a Toronto-based service, a Jewish advocacy group complained to the new Internet provider, based in B.C., and run by Bernard Klatt. Mr. Klatt would later play a key role in the Lemire tribunal hearing, called as an expert witness by Mr. Lemire. It was Mr. Klatt’s affidavit that gave rise to the theory that Mr. Warman had written the “Anne Cools Post,” a vulgar, racist comment about the Canadian senator that was posted on a racist website. Bloggers who repeated this allegation continue to fight a libel suit by Mr. Warman.

Both Mr. Lemire and Mr. Warman have spoken with and corresponded with the National Post throughout the tribunal process, but neither agreed to be interviewed in advance of the appeal, which begins Tuesday in Toronto.
© The National Post

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YOUTH ACCUSED OF RACIST ATTACK UNREPENTANT (Canada)

Facebook postings stirring debate; Winnipeg teen leaves school where he allegedly burned Jewish student's hair with a lighter

7/12/2011- A Winnipeg teen accused of a racist attack on a Jewish high school student is now stirring debate about the incident through his very public Facebook page. Police confirmed a 15-year-old boy had been charged with assault with a weapon for allegedly using a lighter to burn the hair of a Jewish classmate while uttering anti-Semitic remarks in the halls of Oak Park High School. But while police said it was still being determined whether the boy will be charged with hate crimes, the boy had a message of his own - a picture of himself on his Facebook page wearing a shirt with a slogan relating that he loves "haters." And he's being lauded by others online for the alleged attack.

The incident happened after school on Nov. 18 in the hallways of the school. The girl was not physically hurt in the attack and has since returned to school. One of the boy's friends, a young woman, posted her support for him on his Facebook page. "What you did should have been applauded. But s-happens," she wrote, drawing an immediate response from some of his other Facebook friends. While two people supported her views, two others responded negatively. One called the boy a "skinhead," while another insisted what he did should "not be applauded."

The teen's Facebook page is also filled with other vulgarities, including a derogatory term for homosexuals. The boy has since withdrawn from Oak Park, said Lawrence Lussier, Pembina Trails School Division superintendent. Lussier said a second student has been suspended indefinitely while the police investigation continues. It's alleged the second boy was present when the girl's hair was scorched, although Lussier said his part in what happened is "not clear." Winnipeg Police Const. Rob Carver said officers are aware of a second individual, but no charges are pending.

School officials have since disciplined that boy and a third 15-year old boy for "one comment each on social media" after the Nov. 18 incident, said Lussier. The comments were "related to anti-Semitism." "We can't claim to police the Internet really. Whatever we can intervene in ... are things that kids report to us normally, that are affecting the learning environment. Kids come to school scared or they're bothered by what someone said to them, or generally on some site." Carver noted the age of the accused is "particularly unusual" and called the allegations "disturbing."

"I have been doing policing for upwards of a couple of decades and don't think I've ever seen an incident like this," said Carver. "This is very young to be holding such ... hardened, racist views, and have a lot of violence associated with it." As of Monday, police had not laid any charges related to hate crimes. "Certainly, when you read this, you wonder about potential hate crime charges," said Carver. "The case has been forwarded on to the Department of Justice ... and they'll be looking into that." David Matas, a prominent Winnipeg lawyer who is senior honorary counsel for B'nai Brith, said the case shows the "durability of anti-Semitism."
© The Montreal Gazette

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N.Y.C. POLICE MALIGNED PARADEGOERS ON FACEBOOK (usa)

They called people “animals” and “savages.” One comment said, “Drop a bomb and wipe them all out.”

5/12/2011- Hearing New York police officers speak publicly but candidly about one another and the people they police is rare indeed, especially with their names attached. But for a few days in September, a raw and rude conversation among officers was on Facebook for the world to see — until it vanished for unknown reasons. It offered a fly-on-the-wall view of officers displaying roiling emotions often hidden from the public, a copy of the posting obtained by The New York Times shows. Some of the remarks appeared to have broken Police Department rules barring officers from “discourteous or disrespectful remarks” about race or ethnicity. The subject was officers’ loathing of being assigned to the West Indian American Day Parade in Brooklyn, an annual multiday event that unfolds over the Labor Day weekend and that has been marred by episodes of violence, including deaths of paradegoers. Those who posted comments appeared to follow Facebook’s policy requiring the use of real names, and some identified themselves as officers.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s deputy commissioner for public information, said he learned of the Facebook group from a reporter and would refer the issue to the department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. The comments in the online group, which grew over a few days to some 1,200 members, were at times so offensive in referring to West Indian and African-American neighborhoods that some participants warned others to beware how their words might be taken in a public setting open to Internal Affairs “rats.” But some of the people who posted comments seemed emboldened by Facebook’s freewheeling atmosphere. “Let them kill each other,” wrote one of the Facebook members who posted comments under a name that matched that of a police officer. “Filth,” wrote a commenter who identified himself as Nick Virgilio, another participant whose name matched that of a police officer. “It’s not racist if it’s true,” yet another wrote. The officers were at times spurred on by civilian supporters and other city workers, including members of the Fire Department, an analysis indicated.

It is impossible to say with certainty whether those quoted are the people they claim to be. But a comparison by The Times of the names of some of the more than 150 people who posted comments on the page with city employee listings showed that more than 60 percent matched the names of police officers, and Mr. Browne did not deny that they were officers. Of course, some people do circumvent Facebook’s rule on identification. It was impossible to determine the racial breakdown of the officers who were posting comments, but at least one of the participants said that most of them seemed not to be minorities. Efforts were made to contact some of those who participated through the Police Department, through the prosecutor in a court case that revealed the existence of the group, through Facebook messages and through other methods. One, Nick Virgilio, said he was a member of the department but responded, “I don’t wish to comment.”

The comments in the group included anger at police and city officials and expressions of anxiety about policing what has often been a dangerous event. “Why is everyone calling this a parade,” one said. “It’s a scheduled riot.” Another said: “We were widely outnumbered. It was an eerie feeling knowing we could be overrun at any moment.” “Welcome to the Liberal NYC Gale,” said another, “where if the cops sneeze too loud they get investigated for excessive force but the ‘civilians’ can run around like savages and there are no repercussions.” “They can keep the forced overtime,” said one writer, adding that the safety of officers comes “before the animals.” Wrote another: “Bloodbath!!! The worst detail to work.” “I say have the parade one more year,” wrote a commenter who identified himself as Dan Rodney, “and when they all gather drop a bomb and wipe them all out.” Reached on Monday, Mr. Rodney confirmed that he was a police officer and that he had used Facebook, though rarely, but denied making the comment. “That wasn’t me,” he said before suggesting that someone else might have been responsible. “I leave my phone around sometimes. Other than that I have no comment.”

The page — though visible to any Facebook user before it vanished into the digital ether — appears to have drawn no public notice until an obscure criminal case in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn last month, the gun possession trial of an out-of-work Brooklyn food-service worker named Tyrone Johnson. His defense lawyers put many of the controversial remarks before the jury. But when that too seemed to draw little notice outside the courthouse, the lawyers, Benjamin Moore and Paul Lieberman of Brooklyn Defender Services, provided a digital copy of the Facebook conversation to The Times, saying it raised broad questions about police attitudes. While preparing for the trial, Mr. Moore checked to see if the officer who had arrested his client, Sgt. Dustin Edwards, was on Facebook. He was. Mr. Moore noticed that Sergeant Edwards’s profile showed he belonged to a Facebook group formed, it said, for “N.Y.P.D. officers who are threatened by superiors and forced to be victims themselves by the violence of the West Indian Day massacre.”

The group’s title, “No More West Indian Day Detail,” attracted Mr. Moore’s attention because Sergeant Edwards had arrested Mr. Johnson in the predawn hours of the celebrations before the parade in 2010. Mr. Moore said that when he clicked on the link — the page was apparently public — and began reading a conversation that ran 70 printed pages, he was struck by what seemed to be its reckless explicitness. “I found it astounding,” he said. He made a digital copy. When he looked two days later, all trace of the group was gone. At the trial, the defense lawyers argued that the gun Sergeant Edwards said he found near their client had not belonged to Mr. Johnson. Mr. Johnson is black and lived in the parade area. The defense suggested that Sergeant Edwards might have planted the gun. Sergeant Edwards testified he had never posted a comment on the group that protested the West Indian Day detail. He said his involvement had amounted to nothing more than clicking on the name of the group that included “a lot of the people in another police group that I’m in.”

Still, through Mr. Moore’s questions, Justice Bruce M. Balter’s courtroom got an earful of what Mr. Moore described as the bias-riddled police commentary. Did Sergeant Edwards agree with the posting that described the parade as “ethnic cleansing”? What about the one that said the parade should be “moved to the zoo”? What about the sarcastic one that called working the parade detail useful “ghetto training”? “I’m not aware of the post, no,” the sergeant testified. He agreed the comments were offensive. A prosecutor, Lindsay Zuflacht, argued that with no posts from Sergeant Edwards, there was “nothing to indicate that he feels at all the same.” The sergeant did testify, however, that he agreed with the statement that police officers were forced each year to become victims of the violence of the West Indian Day parade.
On Monday, Jerry Schmetterer, a spokesman for the Brooklyn district attorney, said the office would investigate any matters stemming from the trial referred to it by the Police Department.

At the trial, the prosecutor read the jurors one of the cautionary postings that was on Facebook. “Please keep it focused,” the post said. “This is not a racist rant. This is about us, the cops.” On Nov. 21, the jury acquitted Mr. Johnson.
© The New York Times

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BLOCKING ILLEGAL INTERNET CONTENT MAY LEAD TO MIRRORING (uk)

1/12/2011- Blocking access to illegal internet content such as hate-speech and hate crime, may lead to the reproduction and mirroring of the same content internationally, a HoC joint committee has heard. The notion follows an increasing debate by freedom of expression activists on the UK's international jurisdiction in attempting to block illegal content. Questioned by the joint committee on the relevance of international jurisdiction and content blocking, Professor Andrew Murray of the London School of Economics said: "You can, we do this for certain material, we do block child abuse images where ever they are held in the world." But he argued that not all illegal content could be blocked. A balance should be reached as "you don't want to end up looking like the Chinese government; you want to look like a fully functioning democracy," he said.

It was pointed out that the UK government could only regulate and take down content within the UK. Websites hosted abroad could continue making illegal content available to UK users. Witnesses at the joint committee argued that in some cases illegal content should be allowed to avoid "mirroring" and reproduction to a wider audience. Murray said: "If you block access to a website posted on one server that is probably read by less than 20 people in the UK in any one year, what will happen is that it will be mirrored in several locations by freedom of speech activists, mostly in the United States, who see the UK as trying to block freedom of speech." "It will be promoted through social networking sites and something which at the moment is read by less than 20 people per annum will become the next CTB case, where everybody wants to know about it, it's on social networks and it's mirrored. It happened when they tried taking down Wikileaks – Wikileaks was just mirrored and shared elsewhere"

Murray likened internet regulation to a virus, adding: "The internet sees attempts at regulation a bit like a virus affecting the body and very quickly white blood cells are created which attack what they see as this invasion." "Sometimes, it's better to leave well alone, rather than pick at the scab and see what comes out. Yasmin Qureshi MP called for an international agreement or treaty to enable prosecution of cyber-criminals beyond UK jurisdiction.
© Public Service UK

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FIVE CZECHS CHARGED WITH PROPAGATING NAZISM VIA FACEBOOK

The five you Czech men now on trial in Kromìøíž are also charged with inciting racial hatred through the internet

1/12/2011- The trial of five young men accused of propagating Nazism and inciting racial hatred by posting videos containing Nazi symbols and music clips with neo-Nazi content on their Facebook pages has begun in the Moravian town of Kromìøíž. If found guilty the accused could face from three to ten years in prison. All of the accused have pleaded not guilty. The accused are Tomáš Èermák (age 26), Antonín Pohanka (28) Jan Chudárek (20), Tomáš Pospíšilík (20) and Antonín Cápek (19), all from the Kromìøíž district. They allegedly committed the crime of propagating Nazism from February through November of last year. According to the state prosecutor, Robert Hanuš, the videos published by the five accused include music with lyrics which incite hatred against people of “non-Arian” ethnicity. The computers of all of the five accused were confiscated by police. Pohanka and Pospíšilík also face breach of copyright for using counterfeit software.

The five deny the charges, claiming they did not understand the texts of the foreign groups whose videos they posted, and in the case of the extreme right-wing Czech and Slovak music clips they say they liked the music and did not pay attention to the lyrics. “I like hard rock music. I found it on You Tube and it seemed interesting to me,” Èermák told the court, while Pospíšilík said that as far as he understood, the bands “only sung about having fun and against the police,” the news server lidovky.cz cited the accused as telling the court. However, all of the accused have admitted that they took part in extreme right-wing demonstrations and gatherings. Police found 60 stickers of two ultra-nationalist organizations at Pohanka’s home.

The next hearings in the trial are scheduled for February 2, 2012. “The videos published and photographs shared on Facebook will be shown to the court. I consider it necessary to provide translations of the foreign texts because nobody here knows the exact content, and print the texts of the Slovak and Czech bands which are available on the internet,” said the Kromìøíž district court head, Karel Rašín. Assessments by experts on political extremism of the symbols published by the accused are due to be submitted to the court in time for the next hearing.
© Czech Position

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INTERNET SPREADING ANTI-SEMITISM (Australia)

27/11/2011- In his annual report on an anti-Semitism in Australia, Jeremy Jones has reported 517 incidents of “anti-Jewish violence, vandalism, harassment and intimidation in the last year…38% higher than the 21 year average of the database’s history and 31% higher than the previous 12 months. Targeting the Internet as a tool to disseminate hatred against Jews, Jones writes: “As more of the communication media moves to on-line platforms, there is more space available for individuals without qualifications to promote views and opinions. Particularly when the site hosting comments is moderated, there is a prospect that antisocial, prejudice-promoting comments are accorded a modicum of respectability as constituting part of public discourse. There is little indication that the number of anti-Semites is increasing, but no question that the reach of their voices is now magnified.”

55% of reported incidents utilised e-mail.
Jones also refers to anti-Semitism being voiced in objections to Jewish structures on the planning board. During the last year, a planned Eruv on Sydney’s North Shore failed to get approval by the Ku-ring-gai Council. The report reads: ”These included planning decisions regarding Jewish community structures, which had the unfortunate tendency to degenerate from discussions of environmental concerns to attacks on the alleged un-Australianness of Jews, false claims regarding the alleged Jewish belief of superiority over non-Jews or ignorant critiques of Judaism.”

E-mail accounted for 55% of all reported incidents. Examples include:
Long antisemitic email, alleging Jewish conspiracy to cause “floods, earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, typhoons, tsunamis . . . “ received at Jewish organisation in Sydney (10/10).
Antisemitic email, in which sender threatened to publicly burn a torah scroll in response to “Devil-Jews”, “Jews destroying my life” and the “Jewish Agenda” is to bring down Al-Aqsa Mosque” received by Jewish organisations in NSW, Victoria and SA (10/10).
Email signed “Denis Mulheron” which read: “jews stole Palestine killed its people herded them into ghettos and set about starving them. jews are evil they control banking the medis porn and control western governments through donations. Jews did 9/11 as an excuse to attack Afghanistan and irqa the jews now want us to attack iran. The jews caused the 2nd world war pressing the world to attack the gallant and great german people, the german people knew of the evil jew and in a humane way tried to rid Europe of parasite jews, jews always take advantage of the host country jews have been explelled from every European country why? I hope iran nukes Israel a good jew is adead jew jews are behind most wars the great man henry ford knew this” received by Jewish organisation in Sydney (10/10).
Antisemitic emails, one attacking “Jewish menaces” and the other on “the Synagogue of Satan” sent to Jewish organisations in Sydney (1/11).
Antisemitic email, stating Jews “are liars, murderers and thieves” sent to Jewish organisations in Sydney (1/11).
Antisemitic email defending Nazi War Criminals and alleging Jews donate “to political parties to get their way” sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney. Another email sent on the same day attacked “the Jew lobby” and saying “Jews are the lowest form of human life” (1/11). A third email said “get over it one jew the jews kill more palestines (sic) very (sic) day . . . jews declared war on Germany so he killed an enemy” (1/11).
Email signed “Jewkiller” sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney. It opened “fuck all Jews your going ti (sic) get wiped off the face of the earth just wait” and repeated “die jews” dozens of times (1/11).
Long conspiracy theory email accusing Jews of manipulating the weather and using mind control sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney (1/11).
Antisemitic email sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney, saying Jews are “racist pigs” and that “Jews run the courts, media, and government” in Australia (1/11).
Email “I hate jews an ugly brutal murdering parasite people, I love germans in 2nd ww” and much more, including Holocaust denial, sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney (2/11)
Email sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney, calling Jews “evil racist parasites”, saying that “the holocaust is all bullshit a way for greedy jews to get money jews control porn” and more (2/11).
Email “Israel is the new Germany and the jews are the world’s new Nazi” sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney (2/11).
Email claiming Jews had taken over America and “Australia is the next target of the Zionists”, that “Hitler himself was the bastard son of Rothschild who was a Zionist” and “Hitler was told to make believe he hated Jews” sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney (2/11).
Antisemitic email sent to Jewish day school in Sydney, saying Jews “spit in the face of the Australian people”. The email attacked Judaism as a religion as well as alleged Jewish behaviour (3/11).
An antisemitic email was sent to Jewish organisation in Melbourne which told Jews to “get out of our nation” and “to keep your big noses out of the affairs of your kind hosts” (5/11).
Antisemitic email, alleging Mossad operating in Australia to persecute people seeking justice, sent to Jewish and other organisations in Australia and worldwide, from Adelaide (6/11).
Antisemitic email sent by Denis Mulheron to Jewish organisation in Sydney, including “the holohoax is just jew lies to get money from germany”; “the gallant germans treated jews far better than the jews treat Palestine” and “there will only be world peace when the power of the evil jew is destroyed” (6/11).
Long email sent to Jewish community personality in Sydney, saying Jews “twist the truth with words”, “are carrying on like they always had, “everyone knows kikes have sex on their minds all the time”, “Don’t you know that we had to let you’s (sic) get chucked in the Showers”, “a white who sleeps with a Jewess is a trator (sic) and a weakling” and much more (8/11).
Antisemitic email, on the theme “when a Jew gains access to power in white nations, he shits it down the drain for Jew interests”, sent to Jewish organisation in Sydney (8/11).
© J-Wire

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Headlines November 2011

ISLAMIC CIVIL RIGHTS GROUP ASKS FBI TO INVESTIGATE THREATS POSTED ON ANTI-MUSLIM WEBSITE

25/11/2011- A Muslim civil rights group on Friday asked the FBI to investigate a series of threatening posts on an anti-Islam website. The threats posted by visitors to the Bare Naked Islam website include a post from one person who urges Christians to “kill every Muslim twice” and mentions that he routinely drives by a specific northern Virginia mosque. Another recommends blowing up mosques. In making the request, Council for American-Islamic Relations spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said the Internet is replete with hateful commentary about Muslims. But he said these comments differ because they routinely contain explicit calls for violence. “The Internet is a cesspool of bigoted speech, but this is something else entirely,” Hooper said.

The Bare Naked Islam site depicts flames superimposed over a mosque and declares: “It isn’t Islamophobia when they really ARE trying to kill you.” In an email, the site’s author, who identified herself as a New York City resident named Bonni, said she tries to delete comments that call for genocide against Muslims. But she said she does not consider a threat to be explicit unless it targets a specific individual. “Wishing for all mosques to be blown up is not a threat in my opinion. Certainly not any different than you see all over the signs at Occupy Wall Street where they call for the killing of all bankers and Jews. Nobody stops them and the media defend those threats as Free Speech,” Bonni wrote in her email.

She said she supports closing all mosques in the U.S. but does not advocate their destruction. She said the commenters who recommend violence against Muslims are usually responding to violence perpetrated by Muslims. FBI spokeswoman Lindsay Godwin said Friday that the bureau does not confirm when it receives a complaint or a request to investigate. But she said that generally, the FBI will pursue an investigation “if credible threats and evidence exist.”
© The Associated Press

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COUNCIL OF EUROPE CALLS TO "MAXIMIZE THE FREEDOM AND MINIMIZE THE THREATS" ON THE WEB

24/11/2011- Thorbjorn Jagland, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thursday called for better protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law online at a high-level conference. "In short, our vision is about 'maximizing the freedom and minimizing the threats'", said Jagland in his opening address on the conference with the theme of "Our Internet-Our rights, Our freedoms", jointly organized by the Council of Europe and the Austrian Foreign Ministry. The Council of Europe has developed many standards on the rights of internet users, which now will be brought together in a user-friendly compendium of internet rights, particularly in the field of data protection, which is another aspect of freedom of the internet, Jagland said. He also pointed that cyber crime was the major threat to data protection and urged all parties concerned to increase efforts to combat cyber crime through ratification and full implementation of what they have already agreed upon, such as the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and the Protocol on xenophobia and racism through computer systems.
© People's Daily Online

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FRENCH ANTI-RACISM GROUPS DROP LAWSUIT OVER 'JEW OR NOT JEW' IPHONE APP

A lawyer for French anti-racism groups says they have dropped a lawsuit against Apple Inc. over an iPhone app called "Jew or not Jew?" after it was removed worldwide.

24/11/2011- Lawyer Stephane Lilti says the decision "is motivated by the removal of the application in all countries of the world." Lilti said at a hearing in a Paris court Thursday that the app's designer, Johann Levy, decided to remove the app. Lilti says the lawsuit "had beneficial effects." Representatives of Apple in France would not immediately comment on the decision. Apple removed the app from its online store in France in September after critics complained. The app let users consult a database of celebrities and public figures to see if they are Jewish or not.
© The Associated Press

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'POLICE PUT THE PHONE DOWN ON MY COMPLAINT OVER TWITTER RACIAL ABUSE' (uk)

Action is taken when Premier League stars suffer online attacks but when I was in the line of fire officers 'terminated' my call for justice
By Nabila Ramdani

20/11/2011- When is it permissible for men to claim publicly that a respectable woman from an ethnic minority is an immigrant prostitute? According to DS Steve Worthington, of London's Paddington Green police station, any time is a good time, especially if the accusations are expressed in the kind of knockabout vernacular favoured by poisonous mobs. Lots of us have Twitter accounts nowadays, and there is nothing better than a bit of racist misogyny to liven up those dull in-between moments, is there? Disturbing as it may sound, these were the conclusions I drew after reporting a hate crime to Scotland Yard this month. I had received a few abusive tweets too many on the social networking site, and decided to do something about them: not because I am a spoilsport or humourless, but because I object to family and friends reading comments about me which are not just wicked, but against the law.

My complaint – which I'll outline shortly – appeared a certainty for a swift investigation and prosecution. In the past few weeks alone, no fewer than three Premier League footballers have instigated police action against offensive tweets. Sunderland striker Fraizer Campbell was called a "big fucking nigger". The n-word was also aimed at Newcastle forward Sammy Ameobi. Commendably, Northumbria police investigated immediately, even though the tweeters were using "anonymous" accounts (the holders did not use their real names). Two 17-year-olds have been arrested in connection with the Ameobi case and now face prosecution. Both were traced relatively easily through their internet service provider. Proving that London forces are as concerned for the welfare of 6ft-plus multi-millionaire footballers as those in the north-east, detectives traced a tweeter who called Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand a "fucking black cunt". This, of course, was linked to a high-profile case in which England captain John Terry is accused of abusing Ferdinand in person. Nothing like a couple of household-name sportsmen to get the Met agitated, is there?

I am by no means a celebrity, or even vaguely well-known, though do appear on TV occasionally as a journalist specialising in Anglo-French affairs, Islam and the Arab world. I am in my early 30s, from a cosmopolitan background, and well educated enough to hold well-informed views on a number of contentious issues. In short, I am just the kind of woman who becomes an immediate hate figure to a particularly vindictive type of male internet warrior. When I first started receiving critical messages from people – via email, underneath my articles on the internet, or on sites like Twitter – I replied. The democratisation of the global media has created a hugely dynamic debating forum, and the majority of those participating are as courteous as they are articulate. I grew up on a council estate renowned for its lawlessness and have reported from war zones. I know exactly how to stand up for myself in fraught situations and will debate anything with anyone. But when a "whore" hashtag (the device used to signal a discussion on Twitter) appeared against my name, everything changed. What distinguished the two men using the word (and its variations) was not that they wanted an argument, but that they wanted to attack me as viciously as possible. They spiced up their principal insult with as many sexual allusions as they could fit into the 140 characters that Twitter allows.

The senders were not difficult to track down. One has delivered more than 2,000 tweets to date and is linked to a London university. The other is a Conservative party activist from the home counties. He has only 68 followers after sending more than 4,000 tweets, but that is not the point. Both men are conventionally "respectable", but consider it permissible to fabricate obscene claims about women they have never met, and to re-tweet them to as many of Twitter's 200 million users as possible. I recognised the style and content of the tweets as being similar to posts about me that had been flagged up to moderators on other sites. The language was clumsy, and often pompous, but underpinned by extreme personal loathing. Their lies were not only sent directly to those closest to me, but also to my employers.

These men are Brave In Cyberspace, or BIC, as I now refer to them. Their world view – formed as it is in front of a computer screen rather than by interaction with real people – is dogmatic and extreme. I doubt my tormentors have ever met, but they post self-congratulatory guffaws and exclamations as they praise each other's writing. They are self-styled masters in inciting hatred or worse against allegedly inferior types, especially women from foreign backgrounds. They are as persistent and menacing as any kind of stalker. Not that the Met cares. When a colleague first called the Yard on my behalf, he was told that stations in London were "very busy with tourists" but that someone would get back to him within 48 hours. When making his first reminder phone call, three days later, he learned that police officers now routinely use the expression "if you carry on, I am going to terminate this call", especially to those expressing anxiety that a crime has been committed.

After numerous false starts, police arranged for me to visit Paddington Green, where I met station officer Tony Beach. He was polite but largely dismissive, admitting that he did "not really understand Twitter". This seemed odd, considering that almost every force in Britain now uses it as a crime-fighting and public information tool. He did not take a single note, and told me that he would "discuss the matter with a senior officer to see if it was worth pursuing" and get back to me. This was where DS Worthington came in. Five days later he called and curtly told me that the case was being dropped before anyone had even begun investigating. Not only did he consider that calling a woman a whore might not constitute a criminal offence (speculation I found particularly disgraceful, especially as he seemed to have formulated it in around 30 seconds), but that it would "take weeks" and "mounds of bureaucracy" to deal with the matter. He pointed to the possibility of the posters saying they had not sent the tweets in the first place and had been hacked (such a defence is absurd, as the men have to date made no effort to remove the criminal tweets, and are clearly posting as themselves).

In short, Worthington did not believe that the 1988 Malicious Communications Act covers relative unknowns like me. The legislation, which makes it an offence to send any material likely to cause stress and anxiety, can earn offenders a six-month prison sentence. Worthington thought there would be too much work involved, and that the criminals might lie to try to get out of trouble. When I suggested that all of the above was part and parcel of crime detection, and that his colleagues would undoubtedly have taken action if I was playing for QPR, Worthington adopted an ominously officious tone: "I know all about the footballers. You are challenging my authority."

I was doing anything but. I know lots of people – and not just women working in the media – who are abused daily on the internet. Both the technology and legislation are there for these so-called trolls to be found and punished. If the police started to deal with this increasingly unpleasant problem quickly and fairly, it could be stigmatised in the way that abusive phone calls have been. Instead, my exchange with Worthington made it clear that his force's view of internet hate crimes extends solely to famous people. If prosecutions supporting much-vaunted anti-racism initiatives attract politically correct headlines, so much the better. Ordinary people, meanwhile, are ignored. "If you carry on, I'm going to terminate this call," said Worthington, as I tried to discuss all this with him. He duly hung up on me, bringing my complaint to an abrupt halt.

Worthington's message was clear and unambiguous. If you are racially abused or suffer similar attacks on a social networking site, and think that you might be entitled to some Premier League justice, just remember this about the police: they won't give a tweet.
© The Observer

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CZECH INTERIOR MINISTRY: NEO-NAZIS PROMOTING NEW "THIRD WAY" CONCEPT

15/11/2011- The Czech Interior Ministry is reporting that in recent months a certain segment of the Czech neo-Nazi scene has come forth with a new ideological concept, the so-called "Third Way". Authorities say this is a direction inspired from abroad that contrasts itself with classic Hitlerism by combining communist, Nazi and socialist ideologies. The model for the new concept is said to come from the Italian neo-fascist movement Casa Pound, which emphasizes social topics. The Autonomous Nationalists (Autonomní nacionalisté - AN) group is behind the new project, according to the Czech Interior Ministry's report on extremism for the third quarter of this year, recently published online. Authorities have noted efforts on the neo-Nazi scene to develop this new concept since approximately winter 2010. The project was first presented this spring. "Very few people have noticed that the Czech neo-Nazis have now attempted, for the first time in history, to formulate a comprehensive ideological framework," the ministry's report states. The group behind the discussion, according to the ministry, is evidently the AN of Central Bohemia.

"Intellectually more educated and gifted people have infiltrated the more progressive wing of the militant scene. They are communicating with 'western fellow-travellers' and are able to draw inspiration from them. For the first time, a segment of the Czech neo-Nazi scene has managed to definitively crystallize its own position as contrasted to classic Hitlerism," the report says. The ministry says some neo-Nazis have undergone an "unusual dogmatic reflection" and have critically evaluated aspects of Nazism that do not fit the environment of the Czech Republic, such as the idea of Germanic superiority. They are said to instead emphasize social topics, such as the "pro-worker" measures of Hiter's Third Reich. The ministry says neo-Nazis have started promoting the Third Way mainly through their websites, reposting foreign texts, particularly from German and Italian web pages, in Czech translation. "This project is most probably not spontaneous and was preceded by long-term preparations. Czech neo-Nazis have met with their colleagues from abroad in person and studied their media presentations," the ministry's report says.

However, the authorities say that the texts on the Czech websites are written in a "rather stiff" language and it is often clear the author compiled them with the aid of an online translation program. "They are unambiguously propaganda. From the political science point of view, the texts are sheer fraud, an agglomeration of tendentiously selected, confusingly or erroneously interpreted data. Completely marginal trends are often presented which have no chance of success in the academic community because of their quasi-scientific nature, or which would be rejected because of their unethical dimension," the ministry's report says. The remarks published on the websites about those representing the "Third Way" are also said to be confusing. The ministry says the personalities are described uncritically, "in a very impassioned, even affected way", and the texts about them include tendentiously selected and biased facts. "In some cases a response to current political events can be seen (such as an article about [Muammar] Gaddafi and the conflict in Libya or the death of SS man Herbert Schweiger). The attempts to compare a fanatic member of the SS with [Milada] Horáková, who was tortured by the Nazis, or with the left-wing populist [Hugo] Chávez, come off rather chaotically," the report says.

The ministry says similar "calls to arms" are not new on the European scene and copy the Zentropa Klan project, a network of European neo-Nazis who are doing their best to reformulate the ideas of right-wing extremism to make them acceptable in 21st-century society. Members of that project are said to be connected by the idea of europocentrism and the challenge of uniting the European nations to defend against an external enemy. This has led to a falling away of the concept of "traditional pan-Germanic superiority", the authorities explain. The report says right-wing extremists in the Czech Republic have significantly mobilized in recent months in connection with events in the Šluknov foothills. "The situation in the region created appropriate conditions for the activity of a broad spectrum of actors on the scene, from those who are politically active, like the DSSS (Workers' Social Justice Party) to radicals like the AN, the Free Youth (Svobodná mládež) and the National Resistance (Národní odpor)," the report says.
© Romea

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CZECH REPUBLIC: FIVE CHARGED WITH PROMOTING NAZISM ON FACEBOOK

11/11/2011- Five men from Kromìøíž have been charged with promoting Nazism on the Facebook social networking site. The men used their profiles to publish video footage of Nazi symbols and music videos with neo-Nazi themes. The lyrics to the music featured a racist subtext inciting hatred against people not of the "Aryan" race, Kromìøíž District State Prosecutor Pavel Pukovec told the Czech Press Agency last week. If found guilty, the men face between three and 10 years in prison. The men charged are from the towns of Holešov and Kromìøíž and are between the ages of 19 and 28. They are alleged to have committed the crimes between February and November of last year. "Greetings and symbols of Hitler's Third Reich are featured in the video clips. Moreover, one of those charged posted photographs and information on the web regarding a music group promoting Nazism and invited people to their concerts. He actively participated in one unpermitted event of that nature as well," Pukovec said.

The men know one another and communicated with one another through the internet. During house searches, police officers confiscated the computers from which the men had published the videos and found illegal software on the computers of two of those charged. Detectives have charged all of the suspects with founding, supporting and promoting a movement aimed at suppressing human rights and freedoms. The two whose computers contained illegal software have also been charged with copyright violation. Their trial is scheduled for December. At the end of last year, a similar case turned up in Hodonín district. Police officers there are also charging a 22-year-old youth with promoting Nazism on Facebook. The man collected photos and videos with the themes of Adolf Hitler and Nazism on his profile, including links to clips of neo-Nazi music gropus and extremist organizations. The materials were freely available to all viewers and the youth allegedly posted positive comments about them.
© Romea

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FACEBOOK RAPE JOKE PAGES TAKEN DOWN FROM SOCIAL NETWORK

Facebook has removed several rape joke pages from its social network.

8/11/2011- The group pages, which included "You know she's playing hard to get when you're chasing her down an alleyway" had been criticised by victim support groups. The network said: "There is no place on Facebook for content that is hateful, threatening, or incites violence." However, controversial postings may remain if administrators add a tag stating they are humorous or satire. Facebook said it took the action because the pages broke its terms and conditions. "We take reports of questionable and offensive content very seriously," the network told the BBC. "However, we also want Facebook to be a place where people can openly discuss issues and express their views, while respecting the rights and feelings of others. "Groups or pages that express an opinion on a state, institution, or set of beliefs - even if that opinion is outrageous or offensive to some - do not by themselves violate our policies. "These online discussions are a reflection of those happening offline, where conversations happen freely."

Pub joke
The statement's formal language contrasts with the firm's previous comments. In August it said: "Just as telling a rude joke won't get you thrown out of your local pub, it won't get you thrown off Facebook." Facebook's initial reluctance to intervene prompted criticism from campaign groups. Businesses also expressed concern that their adverts were appearing on the pages. Campaigners said they were "delighted" that the postings had been taken down. However, they said the network needed to do more. "Simply removing the pages does not go far enough," said Jane Osmond, from the advocacy website Women's Views On News. "The public need to know that Facebook have revised their position, rather than just removed the pages to protect their public image."

Untagged
Some of the joke pages attracted more than 190,000 "like" clicks from the website's members. Although several postings are now offline, a search for "You know she's playing hard to get when..." still reveals many untagged pages remain. That may change once the company decides it has given administrators enough notice to implement its rules. "It's a tricky line for Facebook to walk," said Theresa Wise, a media consultant. "The risk is that it becomes associated with such acts as the US government taking down Wikileaks or the Chinese restricting Google. "On the other hand its commercial revenues depend on it not being linked to publicly odious sentiments."
© BBC News

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THE NEW FACE OF DIGITAL POPULISM

7/11/2011- Populist parties and movements are now a force to be reckoned with in many Western European countries. These groups are known for their opposition to immigration, their ‘anti-establishment’ views and their concern for protecting national culture. Their rise in popularity has gone hand-in-hand with the advent of social media, and they are adept at using new technology to amplify their message, recruit and organise. The online social media following for many of these parties dwarfs the formal membership, consisting of tens of thousands of sympathisers and supporters. This mélange of virtual and real political activity is the way millions of people — especially young people — relate to politics in the 21st century. This is the first quantitative investigation into these digital populists, based on over 10,000 survey responses from 12 countries. It includes data on who they are, what they think and what motivates them to shift from virtual to real-world activism. It also provides new insight into how populism — and politics and political engagement more generally — is changing as a result of social media. The New Face of Digital Populism calls on mainstream politicians to respond and address concerns over immigration and cultural identity without succumbing to xenophobic solutions. People must be encouraged to become actively involved in political and civic life, whatever their political persuasion — it is important to engage and debate forcefully with these parties and their supporters, not shut them out as beyond the pale.

The New Face of Digital Populism
© Demos

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PAEDOPHILE SITE PROBED FOR PRIVACY VIOLATIONS (Sweden)

A new website set up by a Swede with ties to neo-Nazi groups and featuring the names and contact information of dozens of convicted child sex offenders has been reported for data privacy violations.

7/11/2011- The site, stoppa-pedofilerna.se ('Stop the paedophiles'), allows users to perform geographic searches and includes the names, contact information, personal identity numbers (personnummer), and court rulings of those convicted of child sex crimes and child pornography offences. Offenders listed on the site can have their information removed by undergoing “chemical castration”. The man behind the site claims he simply wants Sweden to toughen its laws against paedophiles. “In very extreme cases, we advocate life in psychiatric care,” the man behind the site told the Aftonbladet newspaper. Jonas Agnvall, an attorney with Sweden's Data Inspection Board (Datainspektionen), said the agency has received numerous complaints about the site since it was launched two weeks ago. According to Sweden's data protection laws, it is “prohibited for anyone other than a public agency to handle personal information about violations of the law which include crimes”.

Violating the data protection laws can result in up to two years in prison. Agnvall explained, however, that the agency has yet to conduct a thorough investigation of stoppa-pedofilerna.se. The Data Inspection Board has previously reported three similar sites to police in recent years, but investigations into two of those sites have since been dropped. The man behind the site claimed that children are “safer” in the United States because many communities there have publicly available sex offender registers. Until recently, he was a known member of the neo-Nazi Swedish Resistance Movement (Svenska motståndsrörelsen) but has since joined the Förbundet nationell ungdom ('National youth association'), which has the goal of “taking back” Sweden. According to Aftonbladet, he spent two months in prison in 2009 for vandalism and making illegal threats against immigrants.

Daniel Poohl, editor of Expo, a magazine which tracks the extreme right in Sweden, said that the Förbundet nationell ungdom is also a part of a network of extreme right-wing groups in the country. He explained that groups on the extreme right have long advocated tougher laws for child sex offenders in Sweden. “It's part of their tough stance on crime and punishment,” he told The Local. According to Poohl, the groups hope their “get tough” views on paedophiles will help them win new supporters. “Interestingly enough, it's one of the few areas where they are colour blind. They don't care if the offenders are white or dark skinned,” said Poohl. “Usually, these groups only draw attention to crimes involving immigrants.” Nevertheless, Poohl expressed doubts as to whether the strategy of trying to target paedophiles would yield results. “At first people may not realize it's an extreme right-wing group handing out a flyer [tougher sex crime laws], but once they start questioning democracy, most people lose interest,” he said.
© The Local - Sweden

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INACH - International Network Against CyberHate

The object of INACH, the International Network Against Cyberhate is to combat discrimination on the Internet. INACH is a foundation under Dutch Law and is seated in Amsterdam. INACH was founded on October 4, 2002 by Jugendschutz.net and Magenta Foundation, Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet.