Internet Discrimination Research
Center (Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet – MDI) has published its annual
report.
During the last year, most of the reports
received by MDI were for antimerism, racism against dark-skinned people and
discrimination against Muslims. According to the MDI, antisemitic offenders are
mainly Muslim or leftist wing activists.
MDI data for 2014
In 2014, MDI received 1,117 reports of
expressions of discrimination. Anyone
surfing the internet will realize that this number is only partial. Dozens of
discriminating posts can be read in Google on any day. Although MDI received
reports on more posts and expressions in 2013 compared to previous years, they
say that the difference is not large. Decline in 2013 was caused, according to
MDI, because starting on this year MDI did not receive governmental aid anymore
and due to incorrect massages about its closure.
The largest category of discrimination in
2014 was again antisemitism (328 incidents, of which 55 reports of Holocaust
denial), followed by racism against dark-skinned people (255 incidents) and
discrimination against Muslims (219 incidents).
Antisemitism
MDI devotes the largest portion of the
report to the largest category, antisemitism.
It seems that the increase in the number of
antisemitic incidents was following the war in Gaza. In July last year, MDI alerted
regarding the increase in reports of antisemitic incidents. MDI noted, among
other things, that within 14 days they reached 122 reports on 412 antisemitic
posts, each of them was related to the Israel
– Gaza
conflict.
It is noteworthy that MDI received 412
reports in two weeks in July 2014, but the total number of incidents in 2014
was lower, i.e. 328. It turned out, in retrospect, that the number published by
MDI in July 2014 was too high. Ms. Suzette Bronckhorst, MDI Director, explained
by e-mail that examination revealed that the 412 incidents in July 2014
included many duplicates, a number of people that reported the same incident,
and the total number for 2014 does not includes those duplicates. Bronckhorst:
“A lot of reports of the same incident indicate, of course, that the
incident hurt a lot of people, but in the end it gives a
distorted picture.”
