ROME (JTA) – Rome’s provincial council is calling for websites that promote racism and anti-Semitism to be blocked and such online hatred criminalized.
The council on Monday unanimously passed a motion voicing solidarity with Rome local official Carla Di Veroli and with the Rome Jewish community in general following anti-Semitic attacks on Di Veroli that appeared last week on the neo-Nazi website Stormfront.
Di Veroli, who is Jewish, has long been an anti-fascist and minority rights activist.
The motion also commits provincial officials to “assume every appropriate initiative” to urge the relevant authorities and institutions to block websites that “spread ideas that instigate racial hatred, anti-Semitism, xenophobia and homophobia.” It pushed for a law to brand online hate spread on websites as a criminal act.
