Comments (0)Ukraine OKs Presidential Run for Controversial Mayor
November 22, 2009Jerusalem
JTA Wire Service
A Ukrainian mayor who said Jews are to blame for all of the country’s problems can run for president.
Ukraine’s Central Elections Committee last week authorized the candidacy of Sergey Ratushniak, the mayor of Uzhgorod, for the Jan. 17 elections.
On Wednesday, 20 Israeli parliament members sent a letter to Ukrainian officials condemning the decision, the Jerusalem Post reported. The letter expressed concern that there is a “wave of anti-Semitism in the Ukraine that has come to a peak with the authorization of Ratushniak, the current mayor of Uzhgorod, to run for President.”
Ratushniak “has the viewpoint of a Nazi. He denies the Holocaust, and has threatened the Jewish community. He caused an outbreak of hatred towards our people and the State of Israel,” the letter says, according to the Post.
Three months ago, Ratushniak reportedly assaulted a woman, 21, as she campaigned for a political initiative near the university in Uzhgorod, located in western Ukraine at the Slovakia border. The mayor also openly made anti-Semitic statements and anti-Israel remarks.
Ratushniak was commenting on activities of the Front for Change initiative headed by parliament member Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a leading presidential candidate whose parents reportedly were Jewish, when he said, “Impudent Jew Yatsenyuk, who was successfully serving to thieves, who are at power in Ukraine, is using criminal money to plow ahead towards Ukraine’s presidency.”
Ratushniak also said that “Criminal Jew Yatsenyuk has apparently decided that these are the elections to a village council somewhere in Israel. So, using criminal money, he gathered drug traffickers and smugglers, and without the permission of the city council is showering our city with the garbage.”
World Powers to Meet on Iran
World powers will meet to discuss Iran’s nuclear program after the Islamic Republic said it would not export its uranium for further enrichment.
Representatives from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, all permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Germany, will meet Friday in Brussels, according to reports.
On Wednesday, Iran announced that it would not export its enriched uranium for further processing. The announcement appears to indicate that Iran has rejected a plan put forth by the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to send its nuclear material to a third country, either France or Russia, for further enrichment to levels useful in medical research but short of levels appropriate for nuclear weapons.
Russia said Thursday that Iran had not given a final answer on the proposal, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, IAEA inspectors on Thursday visited a newly disclosed uranium enrichment site for the second time in two months.
Iran disclosed the underground site, located near the holy city of Qom, in September, some seven years after the start of construction.
An IAEA report released Monday said Iran could have other undisclosed nuclear facilities.
Holocaust Denier Says He’s ‘Unbroken’ After Prison
A Holocaust denier released from an Australian jail after publishing material offensive to Jews says he is “unbroken” and “unrepentant.”
Dr. Fredrick Toben, the founder of the Adelaide Institute, emerged from three months in a South Australia prison on Nov. 12.
The Federal Court had found him in breach of a 2002 court order to remove all offensive material from his institute’s Web site.
Toben’s site this week carried a message saying that he is “unbroken and unrepentant,” and appears “refreshed and relaxed” after his “little holiday.”
The site features three links to video clips on YouTube during which Toben, 65, vows to continue his work “demolishing the Holocaust.” It also carries a banner saying that “The days are numbered for the greatest lie in the history of mankind.”
Toben also spent two months in Wandsworth Prison last year as German authorities tried unsuccessfully to extradite him on a European Arrest Warrant for publishing Holocaust denial material—a crime in Germany. Toben was arrested at Heathrow Airport on his way to Dubai from America.
He had spent several months in prison in Germany in 1999 for denying the Holocaust.
This story reprinted courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.