Upcoming Events

International | EU

no events match your query!

New Events

International

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link ?Special Needs? Are Out of Control Thu Aug 28, 2025 19:30 | Will Jones
Half of extra schools spending in the last decade has gone on special needs and three-quarters of England's councils face bankruptcy over the costs. As parents chase support for their children, Send is out of control.
The post ‘Special Needs’ Are Out of Control appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Red Flag Over London: How Britain Handed Beijing the Keys to the Kingdom Thu Aug 28, 2025 17:35 | Clive Pinder
London's new Chinese Embassy looks less like a diplomatic mission and more like the command post of a hostile power, says Clive Pinder. Is Britain now so weak that it will stand for this?
The post The Red Flag Over London: How Britain Handed Beijing the Keys to the Kingdom appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Rights of Asylum Seekers Trump the People of Epping, Home Office Tells Court as it Appeals Hotel Clo... Thu Aug 28, 2025 15:00 | Will Jones
The rights of asylum seekers trump the people of Epping and their safety concerns, Home Office lawyers have told the Court of Appeal as they attempt to overturn the closure of the migrant hotel.
The post Rights of Asylum Seekers Trump the People of Epping, Home Office Tells Court as it Appeals Hotel Closure appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Silenced in Starmer?s ?Free Speech Britain?? Thu Aug 28, 2025 13:00 | David Craig
In the space of a few days, David Craig's YouTube channel was shut down, his website was hacked and Amazon banned his books. Coincidence, or something much more sinister in Starmer's 'free speech' Britain?
The post Silenced in Starmer’s ‘Free Speech Britain’? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Anti-Trump Transgender Lunatic Massacres Children at US Catholic School Thu Aug 28, 2025 11:00 | Will Jones
An anti-Trump transgender lunatic has killed two children after opening fire during a Catholic school church service, after scrawling "Jew gas" and "for the children" on weapons used in the attack.
The post Anti-Trump Transgender Lunatic Massacres Children at US Catholic School appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Eastern EU states want ban on Soviet symbols

category international | eu | other press author Friday February 04, 2005 11:10author by Rosebud Report this post to the editors

EU: European Parliament members from eastern Europe called for a ban on communist symbols such as the hammer and sickle yesterday if the European Union decides to outlaw Nazi symbols, such as the swastika.

MEPs from the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania and Slovakia said any ban should also cover communist symbols, because of killings and torture suffered by people in the former Soviet Union or countries under Moscow's domination.

"If there is to be a pan-EU ban of the swastika . . . we would like to see symbols of the communist regime banned as well," Hungarian deputy Mr Jozef Szajer said.

The deputies wrote to EU Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Mr Franco Frattini to press their demand.

EU justice and interior ministers are to discuss a possible ban on Nazi symbols in the light of a recent scandal over Britain's Prince Harry wearing a swastika at a costume party, as part of proposed rules to ban racism and xenophobia across the 25-nation bloc.

Mr Frattini's spokesman said the commissioner did not think it would be appropriate to include Soviet-era symbols in that ban.

"In the context of discussions on fighting racism and xenophobia, including anti-Semitism, this may not be the most appropriate context for discussing a ban of Soviet symbols," Mr Friso Roscam Abbing said. - (Reuters)

© The Irish Times

Related Link: http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/world/2005/0204/2847955071FR04SYMBOLS.html?digest=1
author by hmmmmmmmpublication date Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:08author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Grass root level, street level, municipal authorities if need be. These symbols are detested by some communities and genuinely fondly remembered by others. It seems pointless to open up these scars at times by imposing common trans-state policies.- If we look northwards we see a situation where symbols and flags is one of the main points of contention, yet neither side would accept a complete ban of all symbolism,- would they? "You are now entering the north of ireland where no flag may legally be flown and the only colours you can use are purple, yellow black and white."

Certainly in the case of the swastika, all civilised society is in agreement, but someday that symbol too will have to redeemed from its mis-use, but not quite yet...
In Spain local communities now have the right to remove the remaining symbols of the falangists which are mostly found on social housing project buildings.
In some areas they gladly remove them, they remind them of the oppression of dictatorship. In some they want them to stay because the majority there are reminded of the cheap house they got during the dictatorship.
I reckon we ought worry more about the symbols of the future, which are those of corporate entities and stop them being plonked by marketing imperialism on top of every famed landmark in the East.

author by hmmmmmmpublication date Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:13author address author phone Report this post to the editors

is the move to revisionism and denial of the darkness comitted in the name of both conflicting utopian state ideologies of the XX century.

We've to think about it, its more than just symbols,
but it's not quite the last page of Animal Farm.

think about it
think about it

author by Non-believerpublication date Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:14author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Millions have been killed in the name of religion. Surely that's the natural progression of this pc madness.

author by believer - "its the rack for you!" LOLpublication date Fri Feb 04, 2005 12:20author address author phone Report this post to the editors

religious symbols means Western Art.
Music, Painting, Literature, it is all inseperable from occidental belief patterns.
The humanists of the French revolution did try to clear Notre Dame of Paris, but then felt the need to raise an altar to rationality. They renamed the months, they tore down the statues but then raised others to yet new idols curiously all in anthropromorphic form. The slow birth of "Marianne" as a symbol quickly included the pangs which plunged all of Europe and much of the Americas into the first mechanised and total wars of the modern age. As such both Soviets and NAZIs found they could not "ned religion" they needed to subvert and pervert its inante purpose in the human condition which is the public or private statement of non material existance.
(i'm waxing now...) LOL

author by Iainpublication date Mon May 09, 2005 18:45author address author phone Report this post to the editors

the swastika has been used for centuries in buddhism, jainism, hinduism and many other religions. are we to ban a symbol that to some people holds religious value?

as for the sickle and hammer, that was lenin's sign. stalin simply used it for his own ill deeds. I happen to believe strongly in worker rights and to me, that is what it symbolizes. by banning it, you are simply ignoring the original meaning and passing the blame from stalin to lenin. I have family that died because of him, I don't support anything he did, but that doesn't make me want to ban the symbol he STOLE from a good man.

Related Link: http://web.singnet.com.sg/~sidneys/Swastika.htm
 
© 2001-2025 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy