Christian News Today

Thursday, December 25, 2003

Hungarian President Refuses to Sign Legislation Outlawing Criticism of Jews

by Jeff Hook

RECENTLY, Jews living in Hungary were able to push through a law, adopted earlier this month by parliament, stipulating that any person who publicly expresses hatred toward Jews could face three years in prison.

And, someone who publicly insults a Jew could be found guilty of a misdemeanor and sentenced to up to two years of imprisonment.

The Jews were very disappointed that the law was accepted by only a slim majority of just four votes with 184 parliamentarians saying yes, while 180 said no. Now, in a surprise development, President Ferenc Madl said he refuses to sign the hate speech legislation because the bill could "restrict freedom to a greater extent than is constitutionally permissible."

The legislation came after a series of so-called anti-Semitic incidents:

• Last month an appeals cou! rt overturned an 18-month prison sentence against Lorant Hegedus, a former vice president of the Nationalist Hungarian-Justice Party, MIÉP. In an article published last year he had urged Hungarian society to "segregate Jews before they segregate you."
• Earlier this year a prominent lawyer representing White racialists in a trial asked the presiding judge whether she was Jewish.
• And in Budapest, a soccer team owned by a Jewish businessman heard rival fans chant, "The train is leaving for Auschwitz." Fans shouted other anti-Jewish slogans as well, and verbally assaulted journalists and television crews whom they accused of being Jews.

The foreign relations director of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Hungary, Ernö Lazarovits, said he was "shocked about the president's decision." "I am very very disappointed! I will tell you, very frankly. I hope that people who practice and promote anti-Semitism will not only be told: 'don't do that in the future,' but that they wil! l be put in jail," Lazarovits added.

Lazarovits argues that hate speech only takes away freedom. He hopes that people responsible for "hate crimes" will be punished as in other countries such as Germany. But many politicians of the governing and opposition parties have voiced support for the president's decision.

They say they are concerned that the legislation could undermine freedom of expression in a country where, for years under Jewish communism, there was no free speech at all. In 1999, the Jews attempted to pass legislation that made it a crime to suggest that fewer than six million of them were gassed in "Nazi death camps."

Hungary's justice minister, Ibolya David, rejected the legislation saying: "Such a law would be unconstitutional." The Federation of Hungarian Jewish Communities submitted the legislation after numerous books appeared dismissing the Holocaust as a huge exaggeration.

Jewish leaders say the number of stores selling "anti-Semitic" literature and videotapes has increased significantly since they first requested the law. They cite the example of Aron Monus, who lives in southern Hungary without ever facing questioning for his widely publicized book, "The World Jewish conspiracy."

Despite the set-backs, the Jewish community has vowed to press ahead with its goals for strict laws against all political opposition, similar to the ones already on the books in Germany, France and Austria.

 

 

http://www.ukar.org/farber04.html
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bernie Farber   Letter 04   24-Dec-2003  Bernie Farber runs into Max Silverman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 "I have yet to be told when or where this occurred and remain skeptical as
to the event's existence." - Max Silverman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
24-Dec-2003

Bernie Farber
Executive Director, Ontario Branch
Canadian Jewish Congress
4600 Bathurst Street
Toronto, ON    M2R 3V2

Bernie Farber:

When you ran up against Max Silverman, you were the long-standing Executive
Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress, and he was only a Grade 11
student, and yet he bested you:

*       Max Silverman stood for open debate; you stood for censorship.
*       Max Silverman gives the impression of being truthful; you appear to
have fallen short of truthful twice - once when you said that you had been
unable to talk to him because you were on the phone with Bob Milne, and
again when you claimed that the showing of Jenin, Jenin at some other
school had sparked racial violence.
*       Max Silverman was unafraid to debate you; you ran away.

If you do not exonerate yourself, you will henceforth be unable to look Max
Silverman in the eye.  If you do not exonerate yourself, you will invite
the conclusion that eleventh-grader Max Silverman today would make as good
an Executive Director of the Canadian Jewish Congress as you make a bad
one.  If you do not exonerate yourself, you will be providing one more
reason to justify the headline "Entire Community Embarrassed by CJC" (Ron
Csillag, Still a Shanda?, Canadian Jewish News, 01-Mar-2001 at
www.cjnews.com/pastissues/01/mar1-01/community/csillag.htm).

You might begin your exoneration by disclosing particulars of that
screening of Jenin, Jenin that you claim ignited racial violence.  What
school did this happen at?  What was the date?  Where has an account of
this incident been published?

No matter what your reply, I guarantee it full and immediate publication
alongside Max Silverman's statement below, which offers you a quicker, more
dependable, and more intellectually respectable way of clearing your name
than, say, waiting six years and then demanding that the government purge
Max Silverman's article from the Internet.  If you fail to supply this
information, then the Canadian Jewish Congress will be credited with one
more in its long string of hoaxes - the Jenin-Jenin Sparked Racial Violence
Hoax.

Lubomyr Prytulak

----ooooo00000§§§§§§OOOOO§§§§§§00000ooooo----

Free speech shut down at Toronto school

I object to the willingness of the CJC to interfere in a public school and
tell students what they can and cannot do to promote dialogue and
discussion.
by Max Silverman

December 17, 2003

In grade 11, I transferred from the Community Hebrew Academy of Toronto
(CHAT) to Northern Secondary School, a public school also in Toronto. My
decision was primarily because I could no longer stand to be in the
untenable situation at CHAT where anyone who strayed from the party line -
that of an "Israel is always right" mentality - was branded an anti-Semite
and a traitor. Dissent was muffled and propaganda was rampant.
For you see, unlike most students at CHAT, I am active in a group called
Jewish Youth Against the Occupation (JYATO), as well as various other local
social-justice oriented groups.

I hoped that by changing to Northern, I would be able to express myself
freely, and engage in educated and open debate. Until now, this was the
case.
At Northern we have a number of student-run, student-oriented and
student-council-sanctioned clubs. One of them is the
"Peace-Justice-Environment" club, which is a merger of two previous clubs:
"Students for Social Justice" and the "Youth Environmental Organization."
At the first meeting of our newly united club, one campaign we decided to
organize was a weekly film series of movies with a social-justice slant.

I was put in charge of this film series, and decided that our first movie
was to be Jenin Jenin by Mohammed Bakri about the Palestinian refugee camp
of Jenin, the Israeli invasion of that camp, and the emotional responses of
the inhabitants. It is important to know that Jenin Jenin does not have a
narrator, guide or interviewer. It is simply ten or so inhabitants of Jenin
telling their stories, expressing their opinions and their emotions. It is
a beautiful film and the director, Bakri, a citizen of Israel, is
well-known among Israelis for winning numerous Israeli film awards. When
the movie first came out in Israel it was banned for public showing, but
after an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court the ban was lifted.

Our group picked December 10, International Human Rights Day, for the
screening, booked a room for the lunch hour, got a staff advisor to sign
off on all our posters, and began advertising the event.

The day before the event, our staff advisor informed us that our principal,
Bob Milne, had received a number of complaints about the movie, and asked
that our advisor screen the movie to view it for potentially racist or
hateful content. He was also asked to screen Relentless: The Struggle for
Peace in Israel, a right-wing propaganda piece that the Northern Israel
Solidarity Club (another student club at the school) wanted to show. He
watched both movies, said that neither contained racist content, and noted
that Jenin Jenin, while biased as all documentaries are, was far less
political and propagandist than Relentless. I went home that night fairly
certain that the event would go ahead the next day as planned, though
something told me there could be trouble.

I got to school rather early on the morning of December 10 and went
straight to the office of this staff advisor. I found him looking rather
distraught on the phone. I found out after he hung up that he had been on
the phone with Len Rudner of the Canadian Jewish Congress. The staff
advisor told me that Rudner objected to the showing of the movie as it was
too one-sided and potentially anti-Semitic. When asked by this teacher
whether or not Rudner objected to the showing of Relentless, he had no
objections. When asked whether or not Rudner had seen Jenin Jenin, his
answer was that he had not seen it.
As the student organizing the event, I felt obliged to call Rudner back and
hear his objections. I explained who I was, my role in showing the movie,
and asked his objections. Bluntly and simply he told me his objections were
that "There was no massacre in Jenin" and that we were advocating the
position that there was. I asked him if he had seen our posters advertising
the event. He said no. I told him that our posters said "Operation
Defensive Shield or War Crimes and Massacre?", clearly showing that there
are differences of opinion as to what happened.

At this point, Rudner had to "end the call" as he said he was going into an
underground parking garage. He said he would call me back in the afternoon
if I left him my number. I have yet to hear a word from him.

After ending the call with Rudner, I decided I would call Bernie Farber,
executive director of the Ontario branch of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Farber told me that he was "dealing with the principal" and refused to
speak to me until he had discussed it with him first. I pointed out that I
was the student organizing the student-run event for a student club which
got its rights to organize from the student council. (Gee whiz! Students
organizing autonomously!). He refused to speak to me, and ended the call.
(Please note that in a form letter sent in response to inquiries to the
CJC, they claim that Farber wouldn't talk to me only because he was on the
phone at the moment with the principal, Bob Milne. This is a fabrication as
the principal told me he would not speak to Farber until he - Milne - had
met with me as the student organizer).

At 10:30 that morning my staff advisor and I met with Milne. He told me
that Farber said in an email that to show the movie could potentially
violate the Safe Schools Act, as when the movie had previously been shown,
it had caused racial violence at another school. I was intrigued at hearing
that Jenin Jenin had been shown at another school, and that it had caused
violence. I asked which school, but Farber had not told Milne that. I asked
when, but Farber had not told Milne that. Generally when something related
to Middle East education occurs in Toronto or the area, I hear about it
from my activism with JYATO, especially when it occurs in a school. I have
yet to be told when or where this occurred and remain skeptical as to the
event's existence.

I also learned in this meeting that Milne had received calls from the
Superintendent, Director of the School Board, the Canadian Jewish News, as
well as former school trustee, Shelly Laskin, which puzzled me as she has
no authority over the school, and I wondered how she had heard about the
events. Part of my puzzlement was laid to rest when I found out that the
CJC had called her at home the day before. At the end of our meeting, I was
told that the movie's showing was to be "delayed" until he could consult
with others on the school board. He assured me that he has always opposed
censorship and would make sure that students are given the opportunity to
express and hear all opinions, barring racism.

I believed him, and in an email I sent to some interested parties, I asked
them not to call Milne as he was already overwhelmed with calls, and I
thought we could deal directly with him as students. Looking back, this was
a mistake as he only received calls from people wanting to stifle free
speech and shut down the showing of both movies. On Thursday, I found out
that both movies were cancelled and will not be shown at Northern.
Since then, I have been meeting with Milne, the student council president,
and the head of the Israel Solidarity Club in an attempt to find a
solution. It is important to note that the Peace-Justice-Environment Club,
the Israel Solidarity Club, and the Student Council president are all
united in our opposition to the ban on both movies. Despite some political
differences, members have decided that while fighting the ban on the
movies, we will organize together a series of educational events on the
Middle East, with equal representation to the Palestinian and Israeli
narratives, to show that students are capable of organizing events related
to controversial topics without their resulting in racial violence, rioting
or an unsafe learning environment.

As well, we are gathering student signatures on a petition we plan to give
to the administration opposing the ban. We will also stay in regular
contact with Milne, who has dealt with us fairly and equitably, and
continue to work with the administration. At the same time as working in
the school, we will be meeting with our school's elected Trustee, Josh
Matlow.

Among our requests of him will be to bring back to the Trustees a motion
they passed last year dealing with a similar issue. Last year, a student at
Lawrence Park C.I. was putting up approved posters in her school for an
upcoming rally protesting the invasion of Iraq. The principal of her school
opposed putting up these posters and a debate about freedom of speech
erupted. At a Trustee meeting, a motion was brought forward calling for the
establishment of a committee to deal with the application of Board policy
on controversial issues, as the guidelines are quite unclear and give
principals a lot of subjectivity. The motion passed, but it went nowhere.
By having this committee established, we hope that no students will have to
deal with the stifling of freedom of speech that we students at Northern
have dealt with.

Ever since my appearances on CBC and in The Globe and Mail, the Canadian
Jewish Congress has changed its opinion and decided that Relentless is also
not an appropriate "educational tool."

I object to their willingness to interfere in a public school and tell
students ("advise" is the word they use) what they can and cannot do to
promote dialogue and discussion. If they were merely voicing their
opinions, why would they not speak to the student who organized the event?
Why did they think it was necessary to falsely invoke legislation in an
attempt to bully the administration? Of course, I do not know the answers
to these questions, because I have yet to have my phone calls returned.
Max Silverman is a high school student and activist in Toronto.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

External link to home page of Rabble News: Canada's Independent Labour
Magazine: www.rabble.ca

External link to original of Max Silverman's article:
www.rabble.ca/in_your_own_words.shtml?x=29291