On Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Remembrance Day, on 16 April 2007, the EU’s Fundamental Rights Agency is organizing a video conference with Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust authority, to emphasize the role of education in combating anti-Semitism and racial hatred.
FRA together with Yad Vashem will bring together a group of Austrian pupils to speak, via video conference, with holocaust survivors in Israel. The Holocaust survivors give testimony about their lives during the Nazi terror: Without past you do not have a future. The pupils will also learn about current educational initiatives to combat anti-Semitism and racism.
FRA Interim Director, Beate Winkle said, “In order to combat anti-Semitism and racism we need a very strong and clear political leadership. Therefore, I welcome the proposed EU Framework Decision on Combating Racism and Xenophobia, which draws also attention to the transnational dimension of racist acts and the corresponding need for a response at European level. This proposed EU legislation would ensure that, throughout the European Union, racist and xenophobic acts are punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal penalties. FRA calls on EU governments to adopt this proposed EU legislation, which would make illegal, among others, public incitement to racist violence and hatred.”
In order to provide policy makers with a firm basis for anti-racist policies, FRA collects data and information on racist crime, anti-Semitism, and discrimination across the EU. The available data indicate an increase in anti-Semitic activity in some EU Member States over the past years, with incidents ranging from hate mail to arson.
Source: ENAR (European Network Against Racism)
Date: 13 April 2007
Posted: 16/04/07
