EU agency report says Poland observes constant drop in anti-Semitic incidents





Foto: tvn24 "Weaved with mutliculturalism". A mural in Białystok has been desecrated with a swastika sprayed on a Jewish menorah. Local community restored the mural to its original form

In 2017, Poland has seen a further drop in the number of anti-Semitic incidents. There 73 of such cases recorded, whereas in 2016, there were 101, and in 20156 - 167, according to a report by the the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights published on Friday.

According to the document, the 73 incidents recorded in Poland last year are mostly various forms of hate speech, graffitti and writings, including the internet. There were 12 cases of verbal assaults and threats against people of Jewish origin. Three cases were physical attacks and two regarding damage to property.

The report is about anti-Semitism also in other European Union countries.

The report says that in 2017, in Germany, there were 1504 officially recorded cases of "crimes of political nature motivated by anti-Semistism". It was the highest number since 2014. In France, in turn, there were 311 anti-Semitic incidents recorded and that number dropped significantly since 2015 when there were 808 such cases.



The EU agency added , however, that data collected from individual countries "are fundamentally incomparable," because, among other things, they were recorded with the use of different methods and come from different sources within the EU member-states.

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights was established in 2007 with its seat in Vienna. It serves as a counsel to EU institutions and governments on issues regarding fundamental rights such as the right to no-discrimination, access to justice system and issues of racism and xenophobia, data protection, rights of crime victims and children rights.