Paris, 23 February 2023

In a letter to recently elected President of Slovenia, Nataša Pirc Musar, the Wiesenthal Centre Director for International Relations, Dr Shimon Samuels, referred to antisemitism in Slovenian media.

“Madam President, the Wiesenthal Centre is aware of your country’s programmes to commemorate the murder of 90% of the Slovenian Jewish community in the Holocaust,” stated Samuels, adding, “We are also aware that your country has adopted the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) Definition of Antisemitism, as well as the Definition of anti-Roma discrimination.”

The letter continued, “Nevertheless, our attention has been drawn to expressions of antisemitism, xenophobia, calls to violence, conspiracy theories, fake news, glorification of dictatorships and terrorist organizations on the national public broadcasting company, Radiotelevizija Slovenija (RTV Slovenija) – including its website rtvslo.si and social media outlets. Reportedly, the moderator allowing this sort of hateful expression is a well-known journalist.”

Apparently, explicit Jew-hatred has also been relayed through his own Twitter account, where he claimed that “the vaccination campaign exposes the essence of Israel’s Apartheid regime,” explaining that “the policy of Jewish supremacy in Israel means that the government restricted vaccines to its Arab citizens.” This has been proven blatantly untrue!

On another occasion, the same “journalist” qualifies the State of Israel as being “a European settlement – colonial project”... “establishing and maintaining a Jewish majority in Palestine, using methods of ethnic cleansing.” This is maliciously biased and horrifying!

While the EU and other countries see Hamas as a Palestinian terrorist organization, he has acclaimed it as “a liberation movement of freedom fighters.”

The Centre’s letter stated: “Madam President, we urge the competent Slovenian authorities to investigate these charges and redress any form of slanderous or hateful rhetoric on national public media. As a lawyer and a former journalist, you are well aware of the limits between information or free opinion and incitement to hatred or defamation.”

“Every year, we are at the Frankfurt Book Fair to identify conspiracy theories, hate and antisemitism on its shelves. We are looking forward to visiting the 2023 edition of the Fair, where the ‘Honoured Guest’ is Slovenia,” concluded Samuels.

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For further information, contact Shimon Samuels at csweurope@gmail.com