World Jewish News

Kiev Mayor Moves Against Country's Chief Distributor of Antisemitic Literature.

Leonid Chernovetsky - the mayor of Kiev--has taken steps to restrict the activities of the country's main publisher and distributor of antisemitic literature - the Inter-regional Academy of Personnel (MAUP), according to a June 1, 2007 report in the Ukraine edition of the Russian daily Kommersant. Mayor Chernovetsky expressed frustration at years of attempts by his administration to get police and prosecutors to restrict MAUP's publishing under the country's hate speech laws, which have only been successfully applied once. He decided instead to appeal to Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich to cut off government financing to MAUP, but since it is a private university, such a step is unlikely to have a significant impact. In the meantime, the mayor vowed to use any law or regulation he could to shut down the nearly 30 MAUP kiosks that operate in Kiev. The "Kommersant" reporter accompanied municipal officials on their way to one of these kiosks, where in addition to MAUP publications, the infamous antisemitic forgery "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" was openly on sale. A spokesman for MAUP vowed to contest the kiosk's closure in court. Although not mentioned in the article, the mayor's action may have been motivated by recent press reports that MAUP is distributing Holocaust denial literature near Babi Yar - the infamous site of a Nazi massacre.

Источник: fsumonitor.com