March 10



GERMANY:

Berlin to ban neo-Nazi protests at Holocaust sites

8 March 2005

BERLIN - The German government plans to ban far-right protests at
Holocaust sites amid fears neo-Nazis are seeking to hijack the upcoming
60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's defeat, an official said on Tuesday.

Freedom of assembly laws will be tightened to allow authorities to prevent
rightists from "violating the dignity" of Third Reich victims, said Volker
Beck of the Greens Party which serves in Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's
centre-left coalition.

Beck said the reform would allow police to ban neo-Nazi protests close to
former concentration camps and at Berlin's Holocaust memorial which will
formally be opened in May.



Parliament is due to vote on the legislation this Friday.

The move comes after the anti-foreigner and anti-Semitic National
Democratic Party (NPD) announced plans to hold a march past the Holocaust
memorial on 8 May - the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's capitulation.

An NPD demonstration in Dresden last month on the anniversary of the
city's firebombing in 1945 drew at least 5,000 right-wing extremists and
was the biggest neo-Nazi march in Germany since the 1950s.

The NPD won 9.2 percent in Saxony state elections last year and now has 12
seats in the state parliament in Dresden.

(source: Expatica)




USA//MARYLAND:

Holocaust bill approved


The Maryland State Senate on Thursday of last week approved SB 440, the
Task Force to Implement Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance
Education.

Its unanimous vote of 46 to 0 will lay the groundwork for an educational
resource center available to teachers from elementary to university
levels, said the bill's lead sponsor, Sen. Leonard Teitelbaum
(D-Montgomery).

"I think everyone realizes that the tolerance level in this country is not
what it was 10 years ago," said Teitelbaum, pointing to widespread
ridicule of people seen as different from the norm. "That's the reason I
put this legislation in."

The measure is modeled on a similar bill passed by California, he said.

(source: Washington Jewish Week)