PARIS (JTA) — A French nonprofit launched a smartphone application for reporting anti-Semitic and other racist incidents.
The application released this week by LICRA, the France-based International League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism, allows users to photograph evidence such as offensive graffiti and send a geo-localized picture to LICRA for processing and removal by the authorities, the news site 20minutes.fr reported. The app also features a panic button that connects users with the police.
“You can’t fight racism and anti-Semitism in the 21st century as we did in the past,” LICRA President Alain Jakubowicz said.
Jonathan Hayoun, president of France’s main Jewish student union, told JTA, “It’s a very good idea because it facilitates reporting, which in turn lends itself to treatment of the problem.”
On May 31 at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris, a swastika was carved into a door of the office of Hayoun’s Union of Jewish Students in France, or UEJF. A similar incident happened there in March.
Hayoun said the new app is not suited for reporting anti-Semitism online.
