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4.1.3.2.4 Comprehensive Nation-wide Hate Crime Monitoring
Since 1996 Nigdy Więcej has been running a project called the Brown Book (Brunatna Księga), a detailed register and description of hate crimes. This book includes racist and xenophobic incidents committed by members of neo-Fascist groups and organizations as well as groups and individuals who have no known affiliation to organized groups or organizations. The association began taking record of hate crimes in the early 1990s, and since then a few thousand incidents have been registered, including more than 40 murders motivated by racist and neo-Fascist ideology. Every year a few hundred cases are reported. The cases are not limited to racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic incidents, but also include attacks against alternative youth and members of progressive social movements (including anti-Fascist, feminist and LGBT activists), violence against homeless people, homophobia, various acts of discrimination (including people with disabilities).
The Brown Book is published regularly in the anti-Fascist magazine Nigdy Wiecej as well as on the association’s web site (www.nigdywiecej.org). Marcin Kornak, the project coordinator and the association’s chairman, explains in the interview: the reason for launching this monitoring project was the large wave of »racist and chauvinist crimes« in Poland. The major objective of the Brown Book was to expose the problem of hate crime, which was often »questioned and disregarded« or, at best, treated as a marginal phenomenon by officials.
»The fact that we create and publish such a significant collection of information forming a base for those who are interested in the problem is a fundamental focus point of our activity. This is the only monitoring of hate crimes that has been run in Poland for years.«
A network of more than 100 volunteers from all over Poland collects information to be published in the Brown Book. The volunteers are members and correspondents of the Anti-Nazi Group (GAN)/Nigdy Więcej network (for more information about GAN, see 4.1.3.2.1). Volunteers frequently decide to cooperate with GAN/ NW after reading the Nigdy Więcej magazine, viewing the website, following the association’s activities or coming across one of the numerous press publications, Internet or radio and television programs made in cooperation with Nigdy Więcej.
Many people who hold anti-Fascist or anti-racist views also contact the association at info stands at concerts, festivals and other public events. Members of the network carefully watch the activities of local far-right circles and collect information about hate crimes committed. They try to verify and complete the information as much as possible and listen to direct reports from victims and witnesses. The volunteers then send information to the office of Nigdy Więcej every month, where Marcin Kornak summarizes and verifies the information if necessary.
Information published in the Brown Book also comes from contacts within minority organizations and social groups exposed to hate crimes, as well as the regular monitoring of the press (including local newspapers) and other media as well as the Internet, neo-Fascist organizations’ activities and football matches.
(OPP)
