The Romanian Elie Wiesel National Holocaust Research Institute stated in its annual report that extreme, anti-Semitic hate speech continues to be strongly expressed in the Romanian online space.
Every year, the institution founded by the Romanian state takes stock of anti-Semitic expressions that harm the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. According to this year's report, efforts to spread awareness of the history of the coronavirus epidemic, the vaccination campaign, and the Holocaust are the most important factors associated with the most anti-Semitic expressions in public discourse. According to the authors of the report, this phenomenon has intensified in recent years.
They added: the Russian-Ukrainian war also worsened the situation, because it strengthened the conspiracy theories. One of the most popular of these is that the Jews lead Romania and the world. The staff of the institute stated: Facebook is still the most popular social networking site in Romania, which has improved the system for filtering out such unacceptable expressions. It was reported that the number of acts of vandalism against Jewish monuments has not decreased , the cult of those convicted of war crimes can still be observed in Romanian society, and anti-Semitic statements are sometimes made in the parliament.
They recalled that at the level of the central public administration, Romania adopted a national strategy for the suppression and prevention of xenophobia, anti-Semitism and hate speech, and the subject on the history of the Jews and the Holocaust in Romania became part of the school curriculum. At the same time, at the level of local governments, civil servants and magistrates, this issue no longer receives as much attention, and the relevant knowledge of those involved is incomplete. For this reason, they are not aware of their own responsibility in monitoring the phenomenon, which makes it difficult to implement central authority decisions.
As an example, they mentioned that there are still streets and monuments in Romania that bear the names of or commemorate those convicted of war crimes. At the level of society, anti-Semitic manifestations are also encouraged by the fact that the authorities do not always take action against them, the report said.
Source+ and title image: MTI
