PARIS, MOSCOW, BERLIN, WARSAW - UNITED FOR RESPECT
News
from the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association
Members
of the ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association have actively promoted the message of respect
for diversity through a series of international meetings in the run-up to this
year’s International Day Against Fascism and Antisemitism.
On
26-30 October, Anna Tatar repeatedly presented the current activities of ‘NEVER
AGAIN’ in the field of hate crime monitoring at the ‘United for Equality’ forum
held in Paris. The meeting was convened by Les Maisons des Potes with the
participation of anti-racism NGOs from 16 European countries and it featured
presentations by several candidates for the French Presidency who pledged their
support for anti-racist policies.
On
1-2 November, ‘NEVER AGAIN’ representative Rafal Pankowski spoke at the Moscow
International Conference on Counteracting Antisemitism organized by the World
Jewish Congress, the Russian Jewish Congress, and Moscow city authorities. He
led the discussion on countering racism and xenophobia in sports and co-chaired
a session on ‘Authority, society and antisemitism’. Other speakers at the
conference included, among others, WJC President Ronald Lauder, US State
Department Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Ira Forman, Levada
Centre director Lev Gudkov, film director Andrei Konchalovsky, and former chess
champion Anatoly Karpov.
-
‘I believe chess is largely racism-free today, I want to support your efforts
and wish you every success. I hope you will manage to remove hatred from all
the sports, including football’ - said Karpov during a meeting with ‘NEVER
AGAIN’ members.
Several
days earlier, Rafal Pankowski had attended the International Sports Forum held
in Dobrograd (Vladimir region), on the invitation of the Office of the United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Russian Sports Ministry. The
experiences of the ongoing ‘Let’s kick racism out of the stadiums’ initiative were
discussed - the first campaign against racism in sports in Central and Eastern
Europe, initiated by ‘NEVER AGAIN’ founder Marcin Kornak already in the
mid-1990s. The ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association implemented the ‘RESPECT Diversity –
Football Unites’ project in the lead up to the 2012 European Football
Championships in Poland and Ukraine.
Other
recent events where ‘NEVER AGAIN’ activities were presented include the
‘Authoritarianism and Nationalism in Europe’ conference held at the Polish
Teachers’ Union in Warsaw on 5 November.
On 8 November, a ‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association
representative participated in an expert session about populism in Europe (and
in the Americas) hosted by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. On 9 November, ‘NEVER
AGAIN’ members Stanislaw Czerczak and Anna Tatar conduct an anti-discrimination
training for employees of the Royal Bank of Scotland in Warsaw.
- ‘We are happy to be
invited and promote the NEVER AGAIN message to various audiences’ - said
Stanislaw Czerczak.
The
International Day against Fascism and Antisemitism is an annual commemoration
of the ‘Kristallnacht’ pogrom that occurred on 9 November 1938.
The
‘NEVER AGAIN’ Association is a Warsaw-based Eastern European anti-racist
educational and monitoring organization established in 1996.
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