A world-wide United Nations survey of newspapers and publications spreading racial and religious hatred was proposed by the World Jewish Congress today as a means of reducing such propaganda without invoking legal sanctions, in a memorandum submitted to U.N. Secretary General Trygve Lie.
Maintaining that such a study should be one of the main tasks to be undertaken by the Sub-Commission on Freedom of Information of the Press of the Human Rights Commission, the W.J.C. proposed that all member states of the U.N. should be invited to report to the Sub-Commission at regular intervals vital statistics on newspapers or other publications appearing within its territory which regularly publish propaganda directed against racial, religious or national groups. These nations should also report on the government measures undertaken to combat the effect of such hate Propaganda.
The Sub-Commission should invite the assistance of specialized agencies and international non-governmental organizations granted consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, in providing such data, the Congress memorandum suggested. The U.N. Secretariat should be requested to prepare a study on the most effective means of combatting the publication of propaganda preaching racial, national, religious other discrimination, intolerance or hatred, it added.
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