Internet is a real amplifier that allows all the world’s anti-Semites to circulate, translate and copy the Protocols. Marc Knobel showed many sites that circulate the famous Judeophobic false document in all languages, in particular some very recent editions that accuse the Jews of using political, financial, military, psychological and scientific strategies. According to these sites, Jews are planning a global conspiracy. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are even on sale at newsstands in France, in Le National Radical, published by a small far right group, although its publication and sale is prohibited.
Racist and anti-Semitic hatred is quietly weaving its web on the net. The third issue of “Etudes du CRIF” has published an important article by Laurent Duguet, listing what could be called a sewer where anything can go down the drain.
One only needs to surf the Internet to understand the phenomenon. Ku Klux Klan pamphlets, SS manuals, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, neo-Nazi literature, all the falsifying propaganda of the negationists, thousands of racist and anti-Semitic books, long diatribes and calls for murder against Blacks, Arabs and other minorities, elements justifying jihad and violence against “non believers”, all the images and all the texts that vilify human dignity and all those who spit on our tombs and trample human rights under foot, all this and more can be found on Internet.
So it time to proclaim loud and clear that there comes a time when the need to respect freedom of expression runs headlong into the equally important need to protect the victims of racist threats and violence. And, as in the real world, the virtual world must not be the refuge of all the provocations that constantly flout human nature.
So we must remember that while freedom of expression is a constitutional right in Western countries, the highest legal authorities of many European nations consider that measures forbidding incitement to racial hatred and the spread of racist and anti-Semitic statements are reasonable and necessary.
We also call on people to meditate on Article 29 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), where we find the foundation of most of our actions: “In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.” The same declaration, in Article 1, states that while “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights” they are also “endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”. Do Nazi auctions on Internet or texts that call for murder proceed from that “spirit of brotherhood”? Do they deserve to be defended or ignored in the name of a freedom that is merely used to offend or kill?
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