Stowarzyszenie NIGDY WIĘCEJ

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czwartek, 2 lutego 2023

Hate Speech on YouTube Documented in a New Report

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association publishes a report on hate speech, antisemitic and anti-Ukrainian conspiracy theories propagated on the far-right Media Narodowe (National Media) YouTube channel, which receives subsidies from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The National Media channel has over 250,000 subscribers. It produces an average of 100-150 broadcasts per month, some of them have tens of thousands of views.

The publisher of the National Media is Stowarzyszenie Marsz Niepodleglosci (March of Independence Association), whose leader is Robert Bakiewicz, editor-in-chief of the National Media and the main organizer of the so-called Independence March, the big far-right march that takes place in Warsaw on Polish Independence Day every 11 November. Bakiewicz is a former leader of the fascist group Oboz Narodowo-Radykalny (National-Radical Camp, ONR).

In the years 2021-2022, Bakiewicz’s organizations (Independence March Squads, March of Independence and National Guard) received almost 5 million Polish zloty (1 million US dollars) from public funds, including over 198 thousand Polish zloty directly for the National Media.

- ‘Many minorities are regularly attacked on the National Media channel, including Jews, Muslims, refugees from Ukraine, and LGBT people,’ says Dr. Anna Tatar from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association, co-author of the report. - ‘Such offensive contents clearly breach YouTube community standards and we expect YouTube to take action’ - said Jacek Dziegielewski, a researcher for ‘NEVER AGAIN’ who participated in the report’s preparation.

Since the first days of the Russian invasion, the National Media broadcasts have presented refugees from Ukraine as a threat (including ‘biological’ threat) to the Polish society, denied the Ukrainians’ right to preserve their own national identity (demanding that they ‘polonize’ themselves), and questioned the Russian war crimes committed in Ukraine. The head of the National Media, Robert Bakiewicz, already in 2021 warned against ‘Ukrainian immigration’, which in his view would lead to an ‘ethnic replacement’ in Poland.

In the report, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association also recorded numerous examples of antisemitic content disseminated by the National Media. Among them there were medieval accusations of blood libel (accusing Jews of murdering Christian children for ritual purposes) as well as claims that the Jews were behind the current war in Ukraine, falsified the history of the Holocaust for financial purposes, were guilty themselves of creating antisemitism, and finally that they wanted to appropriate Poland in order to build their own state under the name ‘Polin’ (Polin means Poland in Hebrew).

Here are examples of comments made on the National Media channel, which were noted in the report of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association:

- Radoslaw Patlewicz (the author of the book ‘Ritual murder in Rzeszow? A historical investigation’): ‘There is hard evidence that Jews used the blood of humans and animals primarily for medical purposes, as well as for ritual purposes. It is, of course, the paschal matzah and the so-called wine ritual accompanying the Seder dinner’ (18.01.2022),

- Piotr Strzembosz (the Faith and Action Association) on refugees from Ukraine: ‘After all, 500,000 people from a country torn by war, this could be the source of not only the COVID virus, but a number of other very dangerous things. If there is a state of war, people may have difficulty maintaining hygiene, they can transmit various parasites, here let’s not be afraid of that word’ (2.03.2022),

- Brunon Rozycki (a regular host on the National Media channel): ‘The depopulation of eastern Ukraine is favourable for Putin, for the Jews and perhaps the West’ (22.03.2022, within a week, this broadcast gained over 100,000 views on YouTube),

- Radosław Patlewicz: ‘The Jews almost expressly demand a de facto liquidation of Christianity, so what attitude should Christians feel toward the Jews […]? It can be said that the Jews are in some ways looking for trouble coming to them, that somebody could harm them’ (25.04.2022),

- Jan Bodakowski (a regular host on the National Media channel, a participant of extreme right-wing demonstrations for many years, and a candidate of the far right Confederation party in the 2019 parliamentary elections; he was not elected): about the symbol of the Russian invasion, the letter Z: ‘[this letter] does not appear in the Russian alphabet […] but it is very similar to a letter that in Hebrew and in Kabbalah means war. And it would also suit the theory that the Kabbalistic symbol of the war was visible on Russian tanks, the more so knowing Vladimir Putin’s very close relations with Jewish communities’ (10.07.2022),

- Robert Bakiewicz (editor-in-chief of the National Media channel): ‘Lies about Jedwabne [an anti-Jewish pogrom committed by Poles in 1941 - editor’s note] have to be straightened out. I am fully convinced that on the basis of the evidence that we already have today, it can be clearly stated that the murder was not committed by the Poles. […] What the Jewish community or Israel says about this issue confirms our belief that it is simply acting for the benefit of currently building the myth of this criminal behaviour of Poles, but also developing this entire religion of the Holocaust’ (8.07.2022),

- Tadeusz Matuszyk (in the 1980s an activist of the so-called ‘true Poles’ faction in the Solidarity movement): ‘For over a thousand years, the majority of Jews have been, are and will be mortal enemies of the Polish nation and state’ (13.10.2022).

‘Report on hate speech on the National Media (Media Narodowe) YouTube channel in the years 2021-2023’ (full version of the report - PDF).

UPDATE: After the publication of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association’s report, the YouTube channel Media Narodowe was removed from the platform.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism and xenophobia, for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally. It has actively participated in international civil society networks, including the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism (GAADHE) and the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH). It takes part in international projects to counter hate speech, Get The Trolls Out and SafeNet.

More information:

www.linkedin.com/company/never-again-association

środa, 21 września 2022

During the Eradicate Hate Global Summit the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association called upon the social media platforms to stop enabling the largest international far-right hate fest.

Co-founder of ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Rafal Pankowski participated in the Eradicate Hate Global Summit held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA) on 19-21 September 2022. The Summit is the most comprehensive anti-hate conference in the world. It unites experts and leaders from around the globe, who are dedicated to eradicating all forms of hate-fuelled violence. The mission of the Summit is to identify and implement effective solutions for collective change.

The speakers at the 2022 Global Summit included the United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide Alice Wairimu Nderitu and Deborah Lipstadt, the US Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Antisemitism.

Rafal Pankowski paid tribute to the victims of the war against Ukraine and said that Putin's war ‘once again shows what the politics of hate and authoritarianism leads to: mass violence and human suffering’.

In his presentation Pankowski described the growth of the annual far-right march on the Polish Independence Day (11 November) in Warsaw as an example of the growing internationalisation of far-right extremism. The march is organized by Polish extreme-right groups with the participation of numerous racist extremist organizations and activists from across Europe and North America. It has regularly gathered more than 100,000 participants and it has often turned violent. Pankowski referred to the march as a ‘super-spreader’ of hate and ‘Charlottesville on steroids’. In November 2021, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism appealed to Facebook and Twitter to stop the promotion and fundraising for the march.

The Eradicate Hate Global Summit grew from the deadliest antisemitic attack in US history. On 27 October 2018, a heavily armed gunman, who earlier had posted online antisemitic and anti-refugee messages, massacred worshippers from three different congregations at the Tree of Life Synagogue. In the aftermath of the attack, the people of Pittsburgh responded in ways that have been described as distinctive in the history of antisemitism. They not only visibly stood in solidarity with the Jewish people, but also offered comfort and aid, and spoke up against hate.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. It is a member of the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH). and the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism (GADHE). The Association also takes part in international projects to counteract online hate speech such as ‘Get The Trolls Out’.

More information:

https://www.nigdywiecej.org/en/our-news/195-articles-from-2021/4727-polish-independence-day-march-likely-to-lead-to-far-right-violence

www.facebook.com/Respect.Diversity
www.twitter.com/StowNIGDYWIECEJ

wtorek, 9 sierpnia 2022

During the biggest open-air free music festival in Europe, Pol’and’Rock (4-6 August), also known as Polish Woodstock, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association organized a football tournament promoting the message of ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of the Stadiums’, involving teenage players who are refugees from Ukraine. Together with the other participants, they manifested their protest against the war.

On another festival day a meeting was held with the rock band Strachy na Lachy (Empty Threats) at the information stand of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association. For many years, this group has been involved in the activities of the ‘Music Against Racism’ campaign run by ‘NEVER AGAIN’. Krzysztof ‘Grabaz’ Grabowski, the leader of Strachy Na Lachy, explained his band’s involvement in support of the refugees from Ukraine after the outbreak of the war. Some of the musician’s family came from Volhynia (a previously Polish territory, now a region in Ukraine). In press interviews, ‘Grabaz’ emphasised the importance of having neighbours of different nationalities and how it can lead to outbursts of creativity: ‘If in some place different cultures coexist peacefully with each other, then they will undoubtedly develop that place and its culture’.

- ‘During our meeting with Strachy Na Lachy, we talked primarily about war and peace, about respect and prejudice in everyday life, about hate speech and how it can lead to violence. We asked the band to explain how music can create a better world,’ said Joanna Naranowicz, a representative of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and the lead singer of the punk band Qulturka.

Strachy na Lachy was established in 2001 by Krzysztof ‘Grabaż’ Grabowski and Andrzej ‘Kozak’ Kozakiewicz who also play in a punk-rock group Pidzama Porno. It is one of the most famous rock bands in Poland. In 2014 the band’s leader, ‘Grabaz’, was awarded with the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta – one of the highest honours in Poland, for his ‘outstanding merits in creative work and artistic activity’.

During the Pol’and’Rock Festival, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association had the honour of hosting many other bands of different music styles involved in the ‘Music Against Racism’ campaign.

The ‘Lets’ Kick Racism out of the Stadiums’ tournament has been organised for over twenty years by the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association at the Polish Woodstock/Pol’and’Rock Festival. In 2022 it was co-organized with the grass-roots football team FC GAN Pila and supported by FARE network and the Adidas Football Collective through its grassroots support programme. Tournament’s male and female participants jointly express their support for the ideas that guide the entire festival: peace, friendship and respect for diversity. This year, the message resonated particularly strongly with young players from Ukraine who had had to flee the cruelty of war.

During the Pol’and’Rock Festival, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association also organised educational workshops on volunteering and supporting refugees. At NEVER AGAIN’s information stand, there were also practical worskhops on designing anti-racist DIY sew-on patches and t-shirts with the use of stencils and paints. The resulting items of clothing with the message ‘Music Against Racism’ were presented to the participants!

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. It has campaigned against antisemitism, racism and xenophobia, and for peace, intercultural dialogue and human rights both in Poland and internationally. ‘NEVER AGAIN’ has conducted the first anti-racism campaign in Eastern European football, ‘Let’s Kick Racism Out of the Stadiums’ and is a founding member of the FARE network.

The campaign ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of Stadiums’ was a brainchild of the late Marcin Kornak (1968-2014), who chaired ‘NEVER AGAIN’ for many years. ‘Let’s Kick Racism out of Stadiums’ has run since the mid-1990s with the aim to combat racism and discrimination at stadiums. One of its main components is monitoring and reporting of hate crimes and hate speech cases.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association also encourages musicians, record labels and promoters who are interested in releasing music tracks or videos as well as organising concerts (including online) with the promotional support of the ‘Music Against Racism’ campaign to get in touch via email: info@neveragainassociation.org .

More information:

piątek, 22 lipca 2022

ROBERT LEWANDOWSKI SUPPORTS REFUGEES

Robert Lewandowski has officially become an FC Barcelona player and will wear the club’s shirt bearing the logo of the United Nations’ main agency for refugees (UNHCR, Spanish: ACNUR).

As a Barcelona player, Lewandowski will be able to join the fight for the rights of refugee children and youth from across the world. In mid-June, the Catalan club signed an agreement with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), according to which it will be allocating 400,000 euros a year to humanitarian activities in Colombia, Turkey, Uganda and Malaysia. FC Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, has said the priority is to ‘focus on refugees around the world, which is one of the most serious problems that we are currently facing, with 100 million refugees or displaced people (according to UNHCR figures) to whom we need to respond. This figure has increased due to the crisis in Ukraine. With this agreement, UNHCR and FC Barcelona are making an extraordinary commitment to the world.’

The best player in the history of Polish football and the captain of the Polish national team has been supporting for years people who had to leave their homes due to war and persecution. In May 2014, Robert Lewandowski, as the UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, visited the Syrian refugee camp in Zaatari, Jordan. At that time, over 100,000 people were staying there, more than half of whom were children. The civil war in Syria has been going on since 2011. According to the United Nations, nearly 12,000 children were killed or injured during the war. Lewandowski, together with two boys, Hisham and Mohammad, visited the place where the children spend their free time, which helps them deal with the traumatic experiences. The footballer appealed: ‘We must be open to the children’s voice. Give them your voice, tell your relatives and friends that there are children all over the world who are waiting for our help and interest. Help us tell their story. Your voice is priceless for these children.’

Two days after the start of the Russian invasion, Lewandowski, in a gesture of support for the people of Ukraine, appeared in an armband in the colors of the country’s flag (during the Bundesliga match Eintracht Frankfurt - Bayern Munich). After the match, he posted a comment on Twitter: ‘As an athlete, I can’t pretend nothing is happening. Stand With Ukraine.’ In addition, Lewandowski donated this unique armband to a charity auction. The proceeds (27,000 Polish zloty) were allocated to the purchase of medical first aid materials and their transport to Ukraine. The footballer also played with the Ukrainian yellow and blue armband in the match between the national teams of Poland and Sweden (29 March, the final play-offs for promotion to the World Cup).

However, in reaction to such an open presentation of his anti-war position, Lewandowski was harassed on social media by Polish hooligans and ultra-nationalists. Apart from signs of appreciation for the footballer and expressions of solidarity with Ukraine – there also appeared xenophobic comments. Here are examples of such content published on Twitter: ‘He was a Pole once’, ‘This is no longer our national team. This is a clear betrayal of the country and the fans’, ‘Face next to the shoe and f.ck the sucker who wears foreign colours’, ‘He bowed in front of the Jews in the match so as not to offend them’, ‘Did we have too few gestures of solidarity with the Bandera followers? [Stepan Bandera was the leader of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists; in practice, the term ‘Bandera’ is frequently used in Poland today as an ethnic slur against Ukrainians – editor’s note] What else to come? Maybe we are supposed to unite our countries immediately and create Ukro-polin [Polin in Hebrew means Poland. Ukropolin is a conspiracy theory according to which Poland would be seized by Jews and Ukrainians – editor’s note]’.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association reported a number of the hateful posts to the Twitter administration, some of which have been removed.

In April 2022, the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association published a report entitled ‘Let’s Maintain Solidarity with the Refugees’ detailing incidents of discrimination and hate speech against Ukrainians, refugees and national minorities in Poland in the context of the ongoing war (READ PDF).

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association has conducted the first anti-racism campaign in Eastern European football, ‘Let’s Kick Racism Out of the Stadiums’ and is a founding member of the Fare network. Since 2005, it has led the ‘Racism-Delete’ campaign, which has the objective of removing antisemitic and racist content from the internet. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a member of the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH) and the Global Alliance Against Digital Hate and Extremism (GADHE). The Association also takes part in projects to counteract online hate speech such as ‘Get the Trolls Out’ and ‘Open Code for Hate-Free Communication’.

More information:

www.nigdywiecej.org

https://globalextremism.org

wtorek, 1 marca 2022

TECH COMPANIES MUST PUT HUMANITY BEFORE PROFIT AND POWER

Statement from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association and Global Project Against Hate and Extremism

28 February 2022

As the world watches Putin’s brutal and deadly invasion of Ukraine in horror, tech companies must decide immediately which side of history they are on. They can fulfill their responsibilities as global corporations, on which billions depend, and do all they can to avoid more death and destruction, or they can remain complicit in an illegal act of war that has already led to many deaths, hundreds of thousands of refugees, and massive destruction of cities and towns.

The choice should be an easy one. Tech companies must deplatform Russian propaganda outlets including RT and Sputnik News and key political figures who are spreading hate and disinformation, helping to fuel this war. And search engines need to derank unauthoritative content and disinformation in favor of legitimate sources.

The Putin war propaganda channels are still very prominent on the major social media platforms. Some obvious examples include the Kremlin’s Twitter account, RT and Sputnik’s YouTube channels, and RT and others’ Facebook accounts, among many, many others. This disinformation leads to harms and contributes to the threats against democracies everywhere. These channels and accounts must be removed immediately.

So far, the tech companies have failed to act in any meaningful way. Even as the European Union has banned some Russian propaganda outlets, people across the U.S. and other parts of the globe are being subjected to lies. And dangerous international fascist and white supremacist groups continue to find inspiration in Putin’s propaganda.

Some platforms, including YouTube and Facebook, have announced they will demonetize the Kremlin-funded propaganda machine, RT, but that doesn’t go nearly far enough. We know from experience, and indeed minimum research today, that YouTube is incapable of adequately demonetizing accounts and that Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube are incapable of appropriately labeling accounts with violative content and disinformation. A piecemeal approach by YouTube, Facebook, Google, TikTok, and Twitter is unacceptable. Any channel or account spewing disinformation must be deplatformed altogether, especially those of the politically powerful who would use the loopholes afforded them by companies with a misguided sense of ‘newsworthiness.’

The nearly meaningless steps tech companies have taken since the Russian invasion of Ukraine aren’t good enough, and are a continuation of their failures to protect democracies, users, and the lives that have been lost while they profit. Issuing statements about minimum changes for press coverage is insulting to the world. We’ve seen how discrimination, hate, violence, and even genocide have occurred while big tech fiddles.

This time, these companies must finally step up and do the right thing, take a lesson from the people of Ukraine and all those supporting them, including the Russian peace movement, and put humanity before profit and power.

Launched in 2020, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) was founded by Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via to address the gap in efforts to stop transnational hate and far-right extremism movements, particularly US-based activity that is exported to other countries and across borders.

The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is an independent anti-racist organization founded in Warsaw in 1996. Since 2005, it has led the ‘Racism-Delete’ campaign, which has the objective of removing antisemitic and racist content from the internet. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a member of the International Network Against Cyber Hate (INACH). The Association also takes part in projects to counteract online hate speech such as ‘Get the Trolls Out’ and ‘Open Code for Hate-Free Communication’.

More information:

www.nigdywiecej.org