Wiesenthal Centre Urges Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Call Greece to Account for Violation of 2004 Berlin Declaration on Antisemitism

March 30, 2009

SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE - EUROPE
Tel. +33-147237637 - Fax: +33-147208401
e-mail: csweurope@gmail.com

Wiesenthal Centre Urges Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to Call Greece to Account for Violation of 2004 Berlin Declaration on Antisemitism

Paris, 30 March 2009

In a letter to OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Madam Dora Bakoyannis, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr Shimon Samuels, expressed "outrage at the Greek authorities' indifference to last Friday's acquittal of hatemonger Kostas Plevris on charges of incitement regarding his 1,400 page antisemitic diatribe, 'The Jews – The Whole Truth'."

He recalled that, "on 16 September 2008, our Centre warned Greece that the following day's Appeal trial of the pro-Nazi publicist would pass 'a message to Greek young people on whether racism may be manifested with impunity '. We noted the irregularities reported during this ongoing legal case, including the expulsion of the plaintiff's counsel from the Court, and the Public Prosecutor who, allegedly, denoted this Nazi text as 'scientific writing'."

The letter quoted the French sociologist, Pierre-André Taguieff, who posited that, "if such extreme antisemitism is freedom of expression, then Jew-hatred has [perversely] become a human right," adding, on behalf of the Centre, "thus rendering the Jew as non-human".

The Centre argued that "Plevis' book unambiguously justifies violence against Jews as individuals and as a collective, on grounds of their religion, their 'Holocaust lies' (despite over 90% of Greek Jewry having perished) and the existence of the State of Israel. Since the appearance of 'The Jews – The Whole Truth', assaults on Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust monuments, throughout Greece, have increased exponentially."

See extracts from the book as quoted by the Greek Anti-Nazi Initiative (GANI) at the end of this press release. Such passages were deemed by the Court as not constituting a provocation of hate and violence, nor an insult, against Greek Jews.

GANI also noted that Plevris' defence counsil, extreme-right LA.O.S. Member of Parliament, Thanasis Plevris, stated that the call for the extermination of any people, even for the reopening of Auschwitz, was "a democratic right".

The Greek Helsinki Monitor has criticized this acquittal as a day it hoped would never come that demonstrates how "antisemitism and, more generally, racism, is deeply entrenched in Greek society, and widely tolerated".

Samuels emphasized that "the most striking feature of this outrage is the lack of protest from Greek opinion-moulders, the political parties, educators, unionists, churches, media etc. Greece has raised the bar of indifference to incitement to a new threshold, showing contempt for its commitments to the OSCE in regard to the combat of antisemitism and racism." He continued, "Left without condemnation, this indifference makes the Greek authorities complicit in any subsequent violence against minorities and sets a disturbing challenge for all State-Parties of the OSCE region."

The Centre urged the OSCE "to call Greece to account due to its violation of the OSCE's 2004 'Berlin Declaration on Antisemitism' and other related instruments.

For further information, please contact Shimon Samuels at +33.609.77.01.58.

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Extracts from K. Plevris' book as quoted by the Greek Anti-Nazi Initiative (GANI):

-"That’s what the Jews deserve. For it’s the only way they understand: a firing squad within 24 hours..."

-"Wake up, the treacherous Jews are digging a pit for the Nations. Wake up and throw them in, for they deserve it..."

-"The civilized world is to blame that tolerates those international pests called Judeans... the time of retaliation has come..."

-"The Jew (in religion) and the human being are contradicting terms, that is, the one excludes the other."

-"The criminal behavior of the Jews explains the Nazis’ deeds against them, and more than that, it justifies them."

-"The history of humankind will hold Adolf Hitler responsible for the

following: He did not rid Europe from the Jews while he could."

-"We despise the Jews for their morality, for their religion, for their deeds, which all prove that they are sub-humans."

- (Underneath Auschwitz photo): "They rightly preserve the camp

(Auschwitz) at a good condition, because nobody knows what might happen in the future."

-"I cannot bear to see the murderers, bandits, rapists, oppressors, pests, corruptors, sappers of the ruffian Jewry, slandering the superior National-Socialists..."

-"The ΖΥKLON B was nothing more than a poisonous gas that was used to clear the concentration camps from insects……all the rest are fairytales of propaganda."

-"The Jewish corpse in the case of Auschwitz was proved absolutely false from the beginning."

-"Get rid of the Jewish propaganda, that deceives you with concentration camps, gas chambers, 'ovens' and other fairytales of the pseudo-holocaust..."