News Releases 2020
“The so-called ‘Palestine Festival’ is a voice that can incite to hate and is not ‘freedom of expression’.”
Paris, 1st October 2020
In a letter to Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed “deep concern at the 1-4 October ‘Falastin - Palestine Festival’ at the Verano Gardens in the San Lorenzo district of Rome – under the patronage of the 2nd Municipality.”
“We were shocked to learn that an Oslo police magistrate, reportedly, had the temerity to call 'freedom of expression' the posters accusing the Jews of 'cruelty against animals, abuse of women and pedophilia'... This is a direct threat to the Jewish communities of, so far, three Nordic countries.”
Paris, 30 September 2020
Following our letters of yesterday to the Swedish and Danish Prime Ministers, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, turned to Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, in regard to the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) posters, which were posted in Oslo outside the synagogue and the Israeli Embassy on Yom Kippur, the most important religious date in the Jewish calendar.
“We were shocked to learn that an Oslo police magistrate, reportedly, had the temerity to call 'freedom of expression' the posters accusing the Jews of 'cruelty against animals, abuse of women and pedophilia'... This is a direct threat to the Jewish communities of, so far, three Nordic countries... Clearly Oslo police require an education on controlling hate,” stated the letter.
“We demand an immediate police apology and proper condemnation of the perpetrators. Indeed NMR, as a pan-Nordic neo-Nazi movement must also be banned in Norway, as has been the case in Finland,” concluded Samuels.
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Please contact us if you are a witness or victim of antisemitism or other forms of discrimination on social media.
"The combination of hatred and technology is the greatest danger threatening mankind." (Simon Wiesenthal, 1908-2005)
Paris, 29 September 2020
In a letter to Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, expressed outrage at neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (NMR) posters, apparently first appearing in Norrköping, Sweden, on Yom Kippur, the most important religious date in the Jewish calendar.
MNR Posters in Norrköping, accusing the Jews of cruelty against animals, abuse of women
and pedophilia... the last one also in Danish, relayed through social media.
“We demand an immediate investigation and condemnation of the perpetrators. Indeed NMR, a pan-Nordic neo-Nazi movement – based in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Iceland – must be banned (as has been the case in Finland),” stated the letter.
“When NMR Hitler-style youth tried to destroy our Centre’s exhibition ‘People, Book, Land: the 3,500 Year Relationship of the Jewish People with the Holy Land’ at the Almedalen Festival in Visby... they were driven back by members of the Swedish Christian Friends of Israel Association,” concluded Samuels.
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Please contact us if you are a witness or victim of antisemitism or other forms of discrimination on social media.
"The combination of hatred and technology is the greatest danger threatening mankind." (Simon Wiesenthal, 1908-2005)
“Wiesenthal Centre and Norwegian Christian members on 11 September urged Prime Minister Erna Solberg to honour French extradition request for trial in Paris.”
“Had the murderer, Anders Behring Breivik, fled Norway, your government would have surely sought his extradition for trial, to ensure that the families of the victims and of the survivors reach closure through justice... The families of the Rue de Rosiers atrocity deserve no less.”
Paris, 26 September 2020
Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, argued in his 11 September letter to Prime Minister, Erna Solberg: “Walid Abdurahman Abu Zayed has evaded justice for 38 years... The rue des Rosiers families of the six dead and the 22 wounded, on 9 August 1982, deserve closure.” “His transfer to France should take only weeks to arrange between fellow democracies.”
“... You have been criticized for removing hatemongers and thus purportedly 'obstructing their human rights'... Freeze Corleone’s malicious hatred can kill and is not 'freedom of expression'.”
Paris, 25 September 2020
In a letter to Sweden-based Spotify CEO, Mr. Daniel Ek, Simon Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr. Shimon Samuels, commended Spotify for “having adopted a policy to remove hatemongers from its platform.”