A plea for international action against anti-Semitism and for freedom of religion was filed here today before the UN Subcommission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, which is scheduled to open its annual, three-week session at UN headquarters here tomorrow.
The document was filed on behalf of the Coordinating Board of Jewish Organizations, which is composed of B’nai B’rith and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and which enjoys consultative status at the Subcommission. Label A. Katz is head of the Coordinating Board.
The memorandum pointed out that, for more than two years, the Subcommission has failed to act on a proposed resolution calling for “measures to be taken for the cessation of any advocacy of national, racial or religious hostility that constitutes an incitement to hatred and violence, Jointly or separately.” Noting that the item is again on the group’s agenda for this year’s session, the CBJO expressed the hope “that the item will not be postponed again.”
The Soviet Union has been fighting the adoption of a resolution spelling out religious freedoms, fearing that such a measure would be tied to Soviet persecutions against Russian Jews. Today’s memorandum, while naming other countries, did not name the USSR specifically, but some of the reports regarding anti-Semitism were seen here clearly as being aimed at the Soviet Union.
LIST ANTI-SEMITIC ACTIVITIES AND PROPAGANDA IN VARIOUS LANDS
In general, the memorandum stated, anti Semitic incitements have been flagrant in various countries recently. “During the course of the past 18 months.” the document in formed the United Nations, “we have witnessed not only the continued outpouring of hate literature within various countries, but the shipping of such literature across state borders.”
Some of the shipments, the memorandum stated, had originated in England, whence swastika emblazoned leaflets had been sent to Germany and distributed in Frankfurt and Munich. Others were reprints “believed to have been produced in the United States by a Nazi organization.”
Egypt was listed in the memorandum as another source of anti-Jewish propaganda. Egyptian newspapers and Cairo’s official radio were quoted as spreading the lie that “savage Zionists” had been responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy.
Three publications issued by official publishing houses in the Soviet Union were also referred to in the memorandum. “In one country,” the memorandum noted, “the press identified Jews with economic criminals and anti-social elements,” In the same, officially unidentified country, the memorandum noted publication of various anti-Jewish bocks. Privately, it was indicated, these books had been published, respectively, in Kiev, Moscow and in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.
International neo-Nazism was identified in the memorandum as another present danger. The document named “the various neo-Nazi international organizations” as follows: European Social Movement, European New Order, Movement of Civil Action, Young Europe, Northern Ring and World Union of National Socialists declaring “they publish over 50 periodicals and issue bulletins in a half-dozen languages.”
“To this,” the memorandum declared, can be added the score of incitatory extremist publications issued by local neo-Nazi organizations. In one country alone, it has been estimated by official Government sources, 223,000 copies of extreme right wing newspapers are produced on a regular basis. “Unofficially, that country was identified as West Germany.
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