Antisemitism in Europe: HRF Urges Appointment of Special Representative

At a meeting of 55 governments in Berlin, Human Rights First urged leaders to combat antisemitism through improved monitoring, reporting, and law enforcement—and to name a special representative to address hate crimes. A conference on racism to be held in Brussels in September will assess progress and consider next steps.

The conference brought together government leaders from all of Europe, Canada, and the United States, and large and diverse delegations from nongovernmental organizations, including Human Rights First and other member organizations of the Leadership Conference for Civil Rights.

The meeting was urgently needed. Discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group has increasingly taken the form of racist threats and violence in a pattern across much of Europe, from Russia to the United Kingdom. This disturbing pattern has included physical assaults on individuals, as well as fire-bombings, gunfire, window smashing, and vandalism of Jewish homes, schools, synagogues, and other community institutions.

The OSCE meeting’s conclusions go some way toward acknowledging that many European governments are not accurately monitoring, reporting, or effectively combating antisemitic violence—and identifying what needs to be done.


Human Rights First published a detailed report for the conference entitled Antisemitism in Europe: Challenging Official Indifference.
This report documents a range of antisemitic incidents in Europe over the last two years, and the measures European governments have taken to monitor and compile data on antisemitic hate crimes. The report is available in English, French, and German.

Antisemitism is a form of racial discrimination and a violation of universal human rights. At the Berlin conference, Human Rights First called on European governments to approach antisemitism as a human rights problem.

Specifically, Human Rights First urges European governments to:

• Systematically monitor and publicly report on antisemitic crimes
  
• Adopt laws that recognize “racist intent” as an aggravating factor in the prosecution of antisemitic crimes
  
• Establish official Hate Crimes Units to strengthen enforcement of laws

• Appoint a Special Representative to oversee the OSCE’s activities aimed at combating antisemitism, including monitoring and reporting
  
• Allocate sufficient resources, as part of the OSCE’s annual budget, to hire a supporting staff dedicated to the problem of antisemitism

Read Human Rights First’s statement to the OSCE Conference

Representatives of Human Rights First attended the Berlin conference as part of a delegation organized by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR). The Leadership Conference is the oldest and largest civil rights coalition in the United States, representing more than 180 human rights, civil rights, and religious organizations.

In addition to Human Rights First, the LCCR delegation to Berlin was made up of representatives from the following organizations:

American Association of Persons with Disabilities
Global Rights
Jewish Council for Public Affairs
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
National Council of La Raza
National Fair Housing Alliance
National Partnership for Women and Families
National Women's Law Center