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| Europe |
| EU Race report team ’told to change findings on Muslims’ |
| 2003-11-27 |
| Slightly EFL; an update on the stifled un-PC report. Researchers who found that young Muslims were to blame for many attacks on Jews were told several times by the European Union to change their conclusions, they said yesterday. The charge helped fuel a furious row between the two sides as they traded accusations of bias, incompetence, and lying. The Anti-Semitism Research Institute of Berlin’s Technical University was asked last year by the EU’s anti-racism body to examine the increase in attacks against Jews across Europe. But the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia has now refused to publish it, claiming that it was too badly written and based on poor Prof Werner Bergmann said the centre repeatedly asked for the draft report to be changed to soften its conclusions about young Muslims. Alterations were also sought when it linked anti-Semitism to both anti-Zionism and criticism of Israeli politics. His co-researcher, Dr Juliane Wetzel, said: "The EUMC didn’t want to publish the report because it’s not politically correct. The results give the EUMC problems because it wants to protect exactly these groups." But Bob Purkiss, the centre’s chairman, insisted that the work was of poor quality - so much so that the centre might try to recover the £4,900 paid for it. "They pointed out the g****** b******* obvious! That’s not what we wanted at all. Of course we want our money back!" "We are studying the contractual arrangements that we had with the Berlin institute to see whether they have fulfilled their contractual obligations and, if not, will be taking the appropriate action with regard to the contract," he said. Mr Purkiss added that the work was never intended for publication, but was supposed to be the basis for a larger study that the centre will conduct next year, with a view to publishing a report then. "We guessed we might want to bury this stuff, ages ago. Really, we did." "The EUMC remains 100 per cent committed to its ongoing research on anti-Semitism and all forms of racism and intolerance." "We just don’t necessarily want to talk about what we find." His comments provoked fury in Berlin. Prof Bergmann said: "We were asked to write a report. "It was totally clear that it was for publication. We would not write it for someone else to rewrite and include in something else." He and his staff had had to gather data themselves because of gaps in the centre’s information, but both sides had agreed there was enough on which to base the report. A letter from the centre to the research institute in January, headed "Chair’s comments on the Anti-Semitism Report", reads: "The EUMC must be seen as bringing groups of people together, not as acting divisively." Under the heading, "Divisive statements" it remarks: "The authors assert a direct connection between anti-Semitism and ’Arab/North African Muslims’, ’the Muslim population’, ’the Arab-Muslim population’, ’young Muslims’ in Europe. D’uh... "The authors assert a direct connections [sic] between anti-Semitism and ’immigrants’." It then says: "All these generalising statements are made despite acknowledgement on the last page that ’the fight against racism, xenophobia and discrimination remains a common struggle’. "That Muslims are also targets of racism and religious discrimination is acknowledged only as an aside. "We ask the Anti-Semitism Research Institute to conduct a study on anti-Semitism, and they don’t fill the pages with references to anti-Muslim sentiment? They didn’t mention anti-Welsh sentiment either? Nor anti-broccoli sentiment? What the hell were they doing with those clipboards?" "Mention of Muslim people should only be made if it were directly relevant to specific manifestations of anti-Semitism. Any generalisation should be strictly avoided." Prof Bergmann said: "I am also in favour of crimes being dealt with independently of a person’s religion, but this was important to our analysis. "Of course these incidents involved for example French citizens, but the fact that they were also immigrants and Muslim was relevant to our study." Absolutely relevant, but rocking the |
| Posted by:Bulldog |
| #4 Stephen I suppose it is not news for you but Lee was for Union and against slavery. He fought for the Confederacy because when Virginia sided with her Lee found impossible to fight against his land and his child. |
| Posted by: JFM 2003-11-28 12:50:47 AM |
| #3 .com, I am way too disorganised to be part of an army. Since I never learned how to climb over the back of a hard-working subordinate,I'm not qualified to be a General.While I have had jobs where I had authority but no responsibility,I never learned the proper way to kiss a$$,so I am not an admiral either.I vote straight Republican,but wish the national leaders of the party remembered the Republican Party was created to fight slavery.I think the Republicans should attack corporate welfare as well as the nanny state.I wish the Rebublican Party would fight the nanny state and left elitism not from the Religious Right's ground,but on the basis of human dignity and individual freedom.My heart wishes R.E.Lee had won,but my head is glad he didn't.Once or twice a week,my dark side breaks out and I wish every lawyer and Islamic religious leader would drop dead.I don't know whether to be worried Europe is so weak and disorganized or glad that it is. I do know I enjoy reading the posts and replies from everyone at Rantburg.THanks for your time. Stephen |
| Posted by: Stephen 2003-11-27 10:44:49 PM |
| #2 Eeewwww. Muslims. With Russian mayo. Mmmmm. - Homer Oh, and so now we have a Stephen! Are you part of the Army of Steves, too? Wow, this IS getting skeery! ;-) Since you spell yours with "ph" instead of "v", you must be a General. Please tell your underlings to back off, or I shall taunt them, uh, em, a third, yeah that's it, a third time! |
| Posted by: .com 2003-11-27 9:34:19 PM |
| #1 Every time I read one of these stories on the EU,I get this mental image of couple hundred million European Gomer Pyles going "Suprise,suprise,suprise!"(Apologies to Bullgog,TGA,et al.) |
| Posted by: Stephen 2003-11-27 8:51:07 PM |