Internet became the new platform for anti-Arab racism, indicates new French report

By Hadi Yahmed, IOL Paris Correspondent

PARIS, July 17 (IslamOnline.net) – In its 94-page report the French Movement Against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples condemned a vicious campaign spearheaded by the extremist right against Arabs and Muslims in France on the Internet.

Citing racist sentences as “A good Arab is a dead Arab,” the report, which was received Wednesday, July 16, and obtained by IslamOnline.net, unveiled an alliance between the extremist right and hardline Jewish organizations to tarnish Arabs and Muslims on the web.

In an interview with IOL, the movement secretary general Mulout Aunet said the report denounces the web-based defamatory campaign against Arabs and Muslims.

He asserted that his movement, which opposed anti-foreigners racism as well as anti-Semitism, can not sand hand-folded vis-à-vis anti-Arabs and Muslims racist rhetoric.

Aunet underlined that the report, which took two years to finalize, focuses on websites that orchestrate the campaign against Arabs and Muslims.

The report traced down 26 websites in France run by rightists, neo-Nazis as well as extremist Jewish and Christian groups.

Racist Sites

The 94-page report outlined different kinds of anti-Arab and Muslim websites, including ones that criticize sites that defend Arabs and foreigners in France such as the Movement Against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples.

Others target websites set up by French Arabs and Muslims to carry their news and issues of interest, it added.

The report spotlighted several websites with extremist Jewish tendencies devoted to smear Arabs and Muslims.

It also cited right-leaning sites that heap praise on westerns and French and ignores the accomplishments of any Arabs or Muslims.

The report affirms that most of these websites belong to the extremist Christian trend.

It asserted that such racist sites do not only target Arabs, Muslims and foreigners in France but also politicians and prominent figures who sponsor close relationship with Muslims, such as French President Jack Chirac.

Several media figures have been exposed to diatribes for adopting moderate stances on issues of interest to Arabs and Muslims.

In one such incident, Xavier Ternisien, a Le Monde journalist, has been accused of being a  homosexual after writing a series of articles condemning the far right.

Conspiracy

The report concluded that the anti-Arabs and Muslims racist campaign showed a common objectives agreed upon by both French rightists and extremist Jewish organizations.

It regretted that legal actions against such racist campaigns remain difficult because its masterminds always use false names.

On July 11, a Paris court jailed and fined six young people for using Internet to incite hatred against Arabs and Muslims.