A resolution seeking to combat online hate ideologies, including anti-Semitism,
was approved by the Italian Chamber of Deputies’ Foreign Affairs Committee on
Tuesday.
The committee “unanimously approved a resolution that aims to
counteract the spread of anti- Semitism – currently experiencing a sharp
increase – through the Web, along with xenophobia in general,” Deputy Fiamma
Nirenstein, the panel’s vice president, said in a statement on
Wednesday.
Nirenstein, a leading expert on European anti-Semitism and
anti-Western ideologies, is a member of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s
People of Freedom party. She has previously initiated resolutions in the Chamber
of Deputies calling for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Turkish
IHH relief organization to be added to the European Union’s list of terrorist
entities.
“This resolution actually sees the government committed to
signing an Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime, which
regards crimes of racist and xenophobic nature committed through computerized
systems,” she said in the statement.
“The protocol allows investigators
to coordinate their actions internationally when they make inquiries into this
type of offense, thereby making it easier to apply abroad an existing Italian
law on countering racial, ethnic and religious
discriminations.”
Nirenstein added, “It is difficult to apply this law
when investigations are halted by restrictions of a territorial nature, or when
the websites spreading propaganda of hatred – and this is often the case – are
on foreign servers. With the adoption of this protocol, it will be possible to
move beyond the limitations of our borders.”
The number of anti-Semitic
websites in Europe, particularly in Germany, Austria and Italy, has
mushroomed.
Nirenstein cited a new study by the Milan-based Center of
Contemporary Jewish Documentation showing that between 2007 and 2010, Italian
websites “with significant anti- Jewish content have almost doubled compared to
the previous four-year period.”
She noted that “the Ministry of
Interior’s figures show that 800 pages with anti-Jewish content were recorded in
2008, including websites, social networks and discussion groups; in 2009 there
were 1,200 and in 2010 they have increased still further.”
Nirenstein
said the Italian government confirmed that it would sign the protocol and that
the resolution would move forward to parliamentary ratification.
“I am
truly pleased with this result, which is an indicator of the common goal of the
Italian parliament to fight the worrying spread of online anti-Semitism, a
phenomenon to which the Inquiry Committee on Anti- Semitism, which I chair, has
dedicated two of its sessions,” she said.
The Austrian neo-Nazi website
alpendonau.info, which has stoked hatred and threats against Jewish journalist
Samuel Laster in Vienna and members of Austria’s Jewish community, is the
subject of an Anti-Defamation League effort to shut it down. Critics charge the
Austrian authorities with shirking their responsibility to ban
alpendonau.info.
A scandal is currently unfolding involving close
links between an agent from Austria’s domestic intelligence agency and neo- Nazi
organizations, including alpendonau.info. Reports in the Austrian media that
intelligence agent Josef Fertschai might have leaked information about the
agency’s efforts to combat Austrian neo-Nazism to his son Benjamin Fertschai, a
right-wing extremist, rocked Austria’s Interior Ministry last month.