Jerusalem—The Simon Wiesenthal Center today praised the steps taken earlier this week by the international football federation (FIFA) to punish the Hungarian Football Federation in the wake of the antisemitic behavior of many dozens of Hungarian fans at a friendly match against Israel held this past August 15 in Budapest.
EU
Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Punishment of Hungary by FIFA for Antisemitic Behavior of Hungarian Fans in August 2012
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Efraim Zuroff, EU, Hungary, Racism
Comments Off on Wiesenthal Center Welcomes Punishment of Hungary by FIFA for Antisemitic Behavior of Hungarian Fans in August 2012
Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?
The Lithuanian government sponsored “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupational Regimes of Lithuania,” known for short as the “Red-Brown Commission” has recently added a new layer of obfuscation and opacity to its activities.
Its website has deleted the names of the “Members of the Commission” thereby rendering it a kind of “secret society.”
Posted in "Red-Brown Commission", Double Games, Double Genocide, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Media Watch, News & Views, Politics of Memory, US State Dept Manipulated?
Tagged Double Genocide, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust Obfuscation, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes of Lithuania, Lithuania, Red-Brown Commission Vilnius, US Embassy in Vilnius
Comments Off on Red-Brown Commission’s Newest Layer of Obfuscation: Are Names of Members Secret?
Lithuanian Supreme Court Upholds Algirdas Paleckis Verdict in Freedom-of-Speech Trial; Appeal to Strasbourg Planned
The small courtroom in the building of the Lithuanian Supreme Court a few yards away from the nation’s Seimas, or parliament, was packed with journalists and mostly older generation nationalist opponents of Algirdas Paleckis. Two judges, speaking in different sections, upheld the earlier verdict against him for having proposed a version of events for January 13th 1991 that is at odds with national historiography.
Posted in EU, Human Rights, News & Views, Politics of Memory
Comments Off on Lithuanian Supreme Court Upholds Algirdas Paleckis Verdict in Freedom-of-Speech Trial; Appeal to Strasbourg Planned
Tolerance Education? State-Sponsored Commission Uses its Website to Call Holocaust Survivor a “Liar” & to Demand “Apology from Jewish Community”
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Somebody’s idea of “tolerance education”? Extract from the official website of the “International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania” (known for short as the “red-brown commission”)
Educators, diplomats, historians and journalists thought they had seen it all when it came to Holocaust-in-Lithuania issues in recent times. But an online attack by the state sponsored “history commission” on a local Holocaust survivor, Professor Pinchos Fridberg, who is deeply involved in honoring righteous Lithuanians who saved a Jewish neighbor, because he expressed his views against distortion of the Holocaust? That is a bit much even for here.
UPDATE of 21 February 2014:
One year later: Defamation continues on Commission website;
See Chronology of a Debate and what Pinchos Fridberg actually said…
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, "Red-Brown Commission", A 21st Century Campaign Against Lithuanian Holocaust Survivors?, Antisemitism & Bias, Double Games, Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, EU, Holocaust Policies of Mr. Ronaldas Račinskas and the State-Sponsored "International Commission" (ICECNSORL), Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Pinchos Fridberg, Politics of Memory, United States
Tagged Holocaust in Lithuania, International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania, Pinchos Fridberg, red-brown commission (Lithuania), Ronaldas Racinskas
Comments Off on Tolerance Education? State-Sponsored Commission Uses its Website to Call Holocaust Survivor a “Liar” & to Demand “Apology from Jewish Community”
Cameron’s Latvian Liaison, One Woman’s Petition and One SS March
O P I N I O N
by Monica Lowenberg
If you walked through a busy EU city today and came across Eichmann Allee, Hitler Strasse or even Goebbels Gasse you would initially think that someone was pulling your leg or you would start to raise, and rightly so, serious questions regarding the ruling government that would allow such blatant glorification of mass murderers to take place. You can therefore imagine how I felt, the daughter of a German Jewish refugee whose paternal Latvian Jewish family had all been brutally murdered in the Libau massacres of 1941 and Riga ghetto, to discover in 2011, that each and every 16 March, since 1998, SS veterans are glorified in the capital city of Riga in Latvia an EU and NATO country since 2004.
My name is Monica Lowenberg; I was born on a cold winter’s day in 1964, in ear shot of Bow Bells.
On January 20, 2012, I set up a petition to stop the 16th March marches in Riga, ninety years to the day from the date of birth of my uncle Paul Theodor Loewenberg who at age 19 was sent to the Riga Ghetto on 4 October 1941. The petition is as much an act of commemoration of the victims of Nazism as it is a tribute to the European parliamentarians, including a number from Latvia, who wisely and courageously signed on the 20 January last year 2012, the Seventy Years Declaration, commemorating Wannsee, a declaration which specifically rejects glorification of Latvia’s Waffen SS, along with Estonia’s Waffen SS and the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) in Lithuania.
Posted in Aleksandrs Feigmanis, Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
Comments Off on Cameron’s Latvian Liaison, One Woman’s Petition and One SS March
Believe It Or Not: Lithuanian Parliament Honors Organizers of Neo-Nazi March in Central Vilnius
Reporting in today’s Lrytas.lt (Lietuvos rytas), Dovydas Pancerovas describes the parliamentary honors bestowed on organizers of last Monday’s March 11th neo-Nazi march on the main boulevard, Gedimino, of the nation’s capital, Vilnius (DH eyewitness reports by Anna Shepherd and Geoff Vasil; see also page 1 report). The following translation from the original Lithuanian is by Geoff Vasil.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Celebrations of Fascism, Collaborators Glorified, EU, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Neo-Nazi & Fascist Marches, News & Views, Vilnius
Comments Off on Believe It Or Not: Lithuanian Parliament Honors Organizers of Neo-Nazi March in Central Vilnius
Upside-Down World? Neo-Nazi March Assisted by Police on Central Boulevard, While Authorities Try to Banish Baltic Pride Across the River….
O P I N I O N
Officially speaking, the annual neo-Nazi march on Lithuania’s independence day earlier this month, complete with swastikas, sieg heils and white power jackets, had been “moved” by the municipality from Vilnius’s central boulevard, Gedimino, to the rather less prestigious location across the river in Shnípishok (Šnipiškės), and the move was confirmed by the courts. But it was all a fiction. On the day, the police facilitated the neo-Nazis’ march up Gedimino as usual without the slightest hint of disapproval, let alone transfer to one of the bridges leading across the river. See our report, and the eyewitness accounts by Anna Shepherd and Geoff Vasil.
Posted in Celebrations of Fascism, EU, Events, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views, Opinion, Swastikas in Lithuania
Comments Off on Upside-Down World? Neo-Nazi March Assisted by Police on Central Boulevard, While Authorities Try to Banish Baltic Pride Across the River….
UK’s Minister for Europe Refuses to Criticize Baltic Glorification of Nazism
British Foreign Office on Latvia’s National Waffen SS Fest:
Minister for Europe Enters the Fray; Of Churchill’s Party, He Seems to Forget Great Britain’s Heroism in Bringing Down Hitler and — Scourge (and Historic Result) of Nazi-Worship in the Baltics
Anna Sheinman Reports in the London Jewish Chronicle
Images from the 2013 Waffen SS events in Central Riga
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Latvia, Monica Lowenberg, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Riga's Waffen SS Marches, United Kingdom
Comments Off on UK’s Minister for Europe Refuses to Criticize Baltic Glorification of Nazism
Lithuanian Authorities Continue to Play Games with this Summer’s Baltic Pride, Bringing Potential Ridicule to Launch of EU Presidency
The following news report appeared today in For LGBT Equality:
Forthcoming EU Presidency Capital Persistent in Banning Baltic Pride March on Central Avenue
On 24 April 2013 Vilnius authorities appealed to the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania, indicating that, despite the judgment by the first instance court, the municipal authorities have the right to propose a location for a public assembly other than that demanded by the organizers. “The law does not provide an organizer with the right to choose the location for a gathering unconditionally,” the municipality claims in its statement.
Posted in EU, Events, LGBTQ Equal Rights, News & Views
Comments Off on Lithuanian Authorities Continue to Play Games with this Summer’s Baltic Pride, Bringing Potential Ridicule to Launch of EU Presidency
Reports from Lithuanian Media Claim that Neo-Nazi “Zeppelinus” is Unmasked as — A Government Official!
Lrytas.lt today published an article by Martynas Čerkauskas, “Lithuanian Economics Ministry Accused of Nationalism” which follows this week’s exposés in Antifa.lt, Baltas.lt, and Kauno Žinios, which all imply or claim that the neo-Nazi internet “hero” who calls himself “Zeppelinus” is actually director of the Economic Ministry’s Expansion of Human Resources Department and a member of the Tripartite Council (labor, business and government), where he is the chief representative of the government’s interests.
UPDATE OF 15 JUNE 2013: See our Open Letter to the new economy minister with appendix of “Zeppelinus” images including English translations of text.
A sampling of images attributed to “Zeppelinus” is provided here.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Collaborators Glorified, EU, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Racism
Comments Off on Reports from Lithuanian Media Claim that Neo-Nazi “Zeppelinus” is Unmasked as — A Government Official!
Zeppelinus Images Revealed as Media Claims he is a Government Official
Three Major Lithuanian Sites Claim that Neo-Nazi Internet Figure “Zeppelinus,” a Hater of Poles, Jews, Roma, Russians, Blacks and Gays is actually…
Director of the Economic Ministry’s Human Resources Dept and the Government’s Rep on the “Tripartite Council”
◊
Samples of Zeppelinus’s hate images on the internet:
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, EU, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Racism, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
Tagged Antisemitism in Lithuania, Zeppelinus
Comments Off on Zeppelinus Images Revealed as Media Claims he is a Government Official
The Homophobic Track Record of MEP Vytautas Landsbergis
O P I N I O N
by Anna Shepherd
Lithuanian conservative politician, former Head of the Lithuanian Parliament and current EPP Member of the European Parliament Vytautas Landsbergis has consistently expressed homophobic views and spoken out against initiatives to strengthen LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights in the European community, and particularly in Lithuania itself.
SEE ALSO:
LANDSBERGIS’S TRACK RECORD ON JEWISH ISSUES
ON THE GLORIFICATION OF LOCAL NAZI COLLABORATORS
Landsbergis expressed his views about LGBT rights unambiguously in his outlandish claim in 2010 that paedophilia is connected to homosexuality. This claim was made at a parliamentary hearing on the sexual abuse on children organised in the European Parliament. According to Landsbergis, children should be protected from “homosexual propaganda” and “homophilic [sic] paedophilia”. Landsbergis’ claims were condemned by Cecilia Malmström, the European Commissioner for Home Affairs; and the European Parliament’s Intergroup for LGBT Rights, which stated that it condemns paedophilia unreservedly, as do all recognized LGBT organizations worldwide.
Posted in Anna Shepherd, EU, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion
Tagged LGBT Rights, Vytautas Landsbergis & Gay Rights
Comments Off on The Homophobic Track Record of MEP Vytautas Landsbergis
The Neo-Nazis Hate the Feminists, Too
Protesters against ultranationalist groups must face police and prosecutors
O P I N I O N
by Lina Žigelytė
Lina Žigelytė
A spectre is haunting Lithuania — the spectre of feminism. All the powers of far-right Lithuania (this includes also far-rightists who know how to present themselves as center-right) have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: puritans and watchful police officers, bloggers and self-described patriots.
The word “feminist” has become the most recent label to define the enemy of the state. This is because grassroots strategies — theatrical protests, DIY media, art projects, and solidarity with social minorities — are rapidly changing the landscape of local feminism. What is important, these strategies also invigorate the broader fight against neo-Nazism.
Posted in EU, Film, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lina Žigelytė, News & Views, Opinion, Symbology, Women's Rights
Comments Off on The Neo-Nazis Hate the Feminists, Too
Baltic Times: Hitting a New Low with “Paid Advertisement” Advocating Migration of Latvia’s Russian Speakers?
O P I N I O N / M E D I A W A T C H
The half-page article on the “Business” page of the Baltic Times (dated 4-17 April 2013 but widely available this week here in Vilnius) carries at its end the words “This is a paid advertisement.”
But these words do not succeed in mitigating the moral responsibility of the increasingly ultranationalist, far-right newspaper in disseminating hate material against any minority, least of all of in an EU / NATO member state. The inherent equality of peoples and their races and languages and national and personal identities are an inseparable component of what the European Union and NATO are all about.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, EU, Free Speech & Democracy, Human Rights, Latvia, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
Comments Off on Baltic Times: Hitting a New Low with “Paid Advertisement” Advocating Migration of Latvia’s Russian Speakers?
Red-Brown “Platform” Runs Another Double Genocide Conference — in Warsaw…
Another EU Supported Lopsided “Double Genocide” Conference, This Time — in Warsaw (14-15 May 2013), Courtesy of the Red-Brown “Platform”
◊
Posted in Collaborators Glorified, Double Genocide, EU, Events, History, Museums, Poland, Prague "Platform"
Comments Off on Red-Brown “Platform” Runs Another Double Genocide Conference — in Warsaw…
“ISTME” Conference Slated for Cracow in September is Funded under EU’s “Science and Technology”
Newest Word for Holocaust Revisionism in Eurospeak? “ISTME” (pronounced Is-it-me?) comes under “Science and Technology”
Is the EU Again being manipulated by “Double Genocide”? Are fine scholars again unwittingly instrumentalized for DG?
More red-equals-brown movement dissemination, now via “Science and Technology”? Orwellian concoctions to downgrade the Holocaust and stifle debate have included: “Reconciliation of European Histories”, “Platform of European Memory”, “principle of non-discrimination of victimhood” and now, under “European cooperation in science and technology” a possibly brand new “Euro-classic”: In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe (ISTME)…
Posted in Double Genocide, EU, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, News & Views, Poland, Politics of Memory
Tagged COST - ISTME, Double Genocide Movement, In Search of Transcultural Memory in Europe (ISTME), Politics of Memory, Red-Brown movement
Comments Off on “ISTME” Conference Slated for Cracow in September is Funded under EU’s “Science and Technology”
President of Germany Hails Baltic Double Genocide Revisionism
by Leena Hietanen (Tallinn)
Germany’s president, Joachim Gauck, welcomed intensified cooperation between Estonian and German historians in the cause of continuing the search for Communist crimes in both Soviet Estonia and East Germany. He posed for photographs alongside Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves with a backdrop of the iconic red-equals-brown Hollywoodesque “set” welcoming visitors to the nation’s Museum of the Occupation in Central Tallinn.
Photo of the two presidents with red-brown-equals-sign backdrop at the Museum of the Occupation in Central Tallinn: Postimees (Erik Peinar). More red-brown iconography here.
Posted in Double Genocide, Estonia, EU, Germany, Leena Hietanen, News & Views, Politics of Memory, Prague "Platform"
Tagged Double Genocide in Estonia and Germany, German-Estonian relations, Holocaust Denial, Holocaust in Estonia, Joachim Gauck on Jewish and Holocaust issues, Leena Hietanen, Toomas Hendrik Ilves on Jewish and Holocaust issues
Comments Off on President of Germany Hails Baltic Double Genocide Revisionism
EHU Center for German Studies: “Colloquium Vilnense 2013” is Short on “The Second Opinion” when it comes to The Holocaust
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
Colleagues at the prestigious European Humanities University in Vilnius (EHU, also known as the Belarusian Humanities University, in exile here in Vilnius) have passed on the public poster for this year’s series of seminars under the title Colloquium vilnense 2013, running from May to November 2013. The A3 size poster is reproduced (much reduced) at the bottom of this page in two halves.
Posted in "Jewish" Events as Cover?, Documents, Double Games, Dovid Katz, EU, Events, Free Speech & Democracy, Germany, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Vilnius Yiddish Institute, Yiddish Affairs
Tagged Belarusian Humanities University (Vilnius), Colloquium vilnense, Colloquium vilnense + Jewish issues, Colloquium vilnense + Yiddish, EHU (European Humanities University), EHU Center for German Studies (Vilnius), European Humanities University + Yiddish, Holocaust Denial and Obfuscation, Holocaust in Lithuania, Holocaust Obfuscation, Vilnius Yiddish Institute
Comments Off on EHU Center for German Studies: “Colloquium Vilnense 2013” is Short on “The Second Opinion” when it comes to The Holocaust
Open Letter to Evaldas Gustas, new Minister for the Economy in Lithuania
O P I N I O N
SAMPLE IMAGES
Background:
Original 2 May 2013 report; Person identified by the media submits 13 May 2013 complaint to the Press Commission [draft English translation], citing Anarchija.lt, Balsas.lt, KaunoŽinios.lt, Lrytas.lt as well as DefendingHistory.com. He does not deny the identification but disputes the characterization of his work as in harmony with neo-Nazism.
23 July update: Zeppelinus greets Baltic Pride with a new hate image.
Dear Mr. Gustas,
Congratulations on your recent appointment as Economy Minister. May your tenure be blessed with success, wisdom and good fortune for all of Lithuania’s citizens.
We address you on the advent of your tenure on a human rights matter rather than an economic question. We feel certain you would agree that there is a demonstrable correlation between the long-term successful economies of the world and free and open democratic societies that reject all forms of state-supported fascism, racism, antisemitism, homophobia and other forms of hate and exclusionism directed at segments of the population.
Posted in Antisemitism & Bias, Dovid Katz, EU, Human Rights, LGBTQ Equal Rights, Lithuania, News & Views, Opinion, Racism, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
Tagged Antisemitism, Evaldas Gustas, homophobia in Lithuania, Human Rights, human rights in Lithuania, racism, Zeppelinus
Comments Off on Open Letter to Evaldas Gustas, new Minister for the Economy in Lithuania
Who’s Afraid of Defending History Dot Com?
O P I N I O N
by Dovid Katz
It is gratifying that numerous scholars from different parts of the world, and indeed of differing opinions on the contentious issues that lie at the heart of Defending History, have on occasion found it a useful resource for data and views on various topics, including the Double Genocide movement, the Prague Declaration (2008), the Seventy Years Declaration (2012), the politics of memory, Holocaust Obfuscation, glorification of Holocaust perpetrators (and attempted criminalization of resistance heroes), East European antisemitism, racism, homophobia, and Litvak identity theft (more on contents and quick intro page).
Posted in Double Genocide, Dovid Katz, EU, Foreign Ministries: Holocaust Politics Abuse?, Free Speech & Democracy, History, Human Rights, Media Watch, News & Views, Opinion, Politics of Memory, Russian Speakers' Personal Status
Tagged democracy in the Baltics, Mccarthyism in 21st century Eastern Europe, new far right in Eastern Europe
Comments Off on Who’s Afraid of Defending History Dot Com?