[Alex Linder]

HASTINGS: Rabbi, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap it up, but go ahead.

HIER: That, basically, is the gist of it, and I am open to any questions.

HASTINGS: I apologize.

HIER: No problem.

HASTINGS: Your remarks are fantastic, but we have the constraint of being out of here at a designated time, so you've just cut into my good friend Mark Levin, the executive director of Soviet Jewry. You've cut into his time.

So now, Mark you have four minutes.

(LAUGHTER)

HIER: Sorry about that.

LEVIN: We'll deal with it later, Rabbi.

Mr. Chairman, thank you for this opportunity to testify before the commission. I so want to recognize my good friend, Co-chairman Ben Cardin, as well as Senator Voinovich and Congressman Smith. We all go back a long ways, and we have accomplished much. And I think sometime today we should remember that it's taken years, but those years have meant much to the people who have benefited from your efforts.

In the interest of time, I'm going to truncate even more, Mr. Chairman. I think it's important that we recognize the progress that's been achieved since the breakup of the Soviet Union. But we're also aware that the Jewish population remains vulnerable to political, economic and social instabilities in the region.

In the almost 20 years since the dismantling of the Soviet empire, anti-Semitism remains a significant problem in the 15 successor states and across Europe as well. While state-sponsored anti-Semitism has been virtually eliminated, we've seen an upsurge, an unprecedented upsurge, in popular anti-Semitism that is visible and vocal.

I thought what I would do is just highlight some of what's going on in the region and then follow with some specific recommendations.

You can almost divide the former Soviet Union into two parts, the Slavic region and then the Central Asian and Caucasus region. We're experiencing a significant rise in popular anti-Semitism in the Slavic region.

As I said, I think it's important to note both the positives and the negatives. In Russia, President Putin has spoken out against extremism, and there was a recent prosecution under Russia's new hate crime laws. However, anti-Semitic acts are still being committed.

At the end of January of this year, there were three reported acts of desecration of Jewish institutions. Fortunately, arrests were made in two of the three of those attacks. However, it remains to be seen how these crimes will be prosecuted.

In Ukraine, the government has taken positive steps towards combating anti-Semitism. You've heard that President Yushchenko has introduced new hate crime legislation, and he did create the special operative unit to fight xenophobia. I'd like to submit for the record more documentation on this.

Despite this progress, anti-Semitic acts still occur in Ukraine. There have been two reported incidents so far this year. A rabbi was assaulted and a synagogue was vandalized. Investigations have begun in both cases.

In the Baltic states, we see sporadic acts of anti-Semitism. I think the major concern for the Jewish communities and for many of us here is that there are two areas in the Baltic states -- and throughout the region -- that need attention. One is the restitution of Jewish communal property, and the other is the tensions that develop around recognizing Baltic nationalists who fought alongside the Nazis during World War II.

In the Central Asia and the Caucasus, historically there's been little anti-Semitism. There are ethnic tensions among other groups, but it's interesting to note that you can go back decades, centuries -- and in some cases over 2,500 years -- where Jews have lived side by side with their Muslim neighbors with little problems.

In Azerbaijan we know of no recent reports of anti-Semitism, and the government has made efforts to utilize ODIHR's resources. Georgia has created a public defender which is mandated to address hate-motivated incidents and promote diversity. Kazakhstan has reported little or no anti-Semitic activity and has hosted a number of inter-religious conferences to promote tolerance and pluralism. And in 2010, I believe, they're the next chair.

There's been much accomplished in combating anti-Semitism across the former Soviet Union since the first OSCE conference held in Vienna. It's important to acknowledge these efforts; however, much more needs to be done.

And what I'd like to do now is just very quickly go through some of the recommendations that we've been making for several years now and that need to be followed through. But first I would add my voice to supporting the need for full funding, adequate funding to ensure that the issue of anti-Semitism is addressed.

Very quickly, recommendations. First, all countries must have adequate hate crime legislation, something that we've pushed, continue to push, something that the Parliamentary Assembly has addressed, and it continues to do this.

Secondly, provide funding for local law enforcement. You've heard a little about this so far. Third, continue to improve monitoring efforts. Without monitoring, we can't do what we need to do. And the last two -- implementation of tolerance education, and finally, reform the message of those media outlets.

Let me just finish by saying that we've learned over the last 30-some years that the commission has been existence that progress can be painfully slow. However, millions of people have benefited from your unwavering commitment to freedom and fighting intolerance. Today, millions continue to depend on this commitment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

HASTINGS: Thank you very much. I've asked my colleagues for unanimous consent to submit into the record a statement from Senator Clinton, who is also a member of this commission. Hearing no objection, it will be admitted into the record.

Rabbi, I promise you the full five minutes. And that would just limit our questions. But please, sir, proceed. Rabbi Baker?

BAKER: Well, it's pro forma to thank you at the beginning of this, and I don't know what to say to try to convey that there should be nothing pro forma in thanking the four of you. I think all of us know the progress that has been made is really so much a result of your personal attention and efforts. The fact that it's such a bipartisan expression as well is so important and so critical.

I don't want to read remarks, even sort of abbreviated remarks, because I know that time is so short.

When this decade began, none of us expected we would be viewing the problem in the way we are. Ironically, in just the last couple of months, we've heard very strong statements from French President Sarkozy, from German Chancellor Merkel. They're welcome statements. It's wonderful they're saying it, but it's also a recognition of the seriousness of the problem.

The fact is that event those few years ago, European leaders weren't recognizing this issue. The message came, ironically, through here -- through America and through the Congress -- that something needed to be done. We've seen how the OSCE has become really the arena, the vehicle to address this issue, and the various points of success -- the Berlin conference and declaration, personal representatives, et cetera.

The fact is I think we all feel that the success, the continuation of this, is tenuous, is always at risk. There are those countries -- and they're friendly countries to us -- who have rejected from the beginning the idea of focusing specifically on the problem of anti-Semitism, who want to subsume it all together in some general discussion of intolerance, who want the whollistic approach, as they euphemistically refer to it.

One ambassador said to me there should be no ghettoization of discrimination. So we know this kind of attitude, and we're going to face it in the future.

The concerns I would like to emphasize here are really -- I'll focus in on two, and my written submission goes through in more detail on other things. I've said, and Congressman Smith has raised it, a concern about the police training program. It was an American offer. It really is an American export. And it's on the verge of falling apart.

Money is a problem, but not the problem. And parenthetically, to hear from the State Department that we've contributed $100,000 over three years doesn't really seem to me to be a great expression of support. But the fact is the people who have been participating in many cases are volunteering their time, and what we're seeing now is, despite the success, it's being denigrated.

There are elements out there that are really trying to undercut it, trying to disparage what it has done, even as they're about now to go on to Bosnia and to the Czech Republic in the next couple of weeks. I think it really behooves you here to take this up at a serious and high level and look into it.

The second area I wanted to focus on was Eastern Europe, because I think with all of the developments that have happened in Western Europe, we've lost sight that there are very real problems there. There was a kind of effort to fast track confronting the difficult period of holocaust era history in these countries to do so many things that other countries have wrestled with for decades.

There have been successes, but the fact is we see now among our new NATO allies problems in all of these countries -- extremist parties which still gain currency, difficulty in dealing with that holocaust era, which has become a new vehicle for expressions of anti-Semitism, whether it's even with property restitution or providing holocaust era history in the curricula of these countries. This is encompassed by the OSCE, and we can focus there and do more.

Among the various conclusions or recommendations that I wanted to make here in this testimony, the importance of the personal representatives I echo virtually everyone else from whom we've heard.

The concern about budget, because budget ultimately shows where our emphasis, where our concerns are. And if we're going to work on this consensus basis in the OSCE and are not prepared to come forward to participate or target support, then I think we're going to have a very, very difficult time.

Finally, the role of ODIHR. Many of us were skeptical in Berlin that it would really take on the task that it was given. I was one of those skeptics, but I believe it has done it, and it has done it in a serious way. But because of inattention, because of lack of funding, we really are in danger of losing these things, and it would be very hard to regain them in the future.

Thank you very much.

HASTINGS: As the senators leave, I want to thank both of them so very much.

And you'll be pleased to know, Senator Voinovich, that Steve Minikes and I had an opportunity for a visit in Georgia. He was an election observer, as was Andrew Baker and (inaudible). Thank you both.

Senator Smith -- oh, Congressman Smith -- I just elevated you, Chris. This atmosphere over here... Go ahead with any questions you may have.

SMITH: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Very briefly again. The time is short.

I would be interested, Rabbi Baker, in the law enforcement officers program. What would it take in dollars and cents to inject a sufficient amount of money to get that up and saved, frankly?

And let me just say the whole issue of free speech, which we all know is a hallowed human right that no one, I think, takes more seriously in the world than the United States of America -- and that is a strongly bipartisan, two centuries-old concept -- but I'm concerned that the incitement to hate gets protected, unnecessarily so, on the Internet and in other fora.

My question is -- just parenthetically -- I'm sponsoring a bill, and I've held a series of hearings, and now we just had another hearing that Tom Lantos chaired, and the bill is called the Global Online Freedom Act. And from that we've learned beyond any reasonable doubt that countries like the Peoples Republic of China, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia and many others are using the Internet to find, incarcerate, jail and torture men and women who are promoting human rights and those who are trying to espouse their religious beliefs.

We recently had Yahoo back. We originally had Google, Microsoft, Cisco and Google testify, and it became very clear that the technology is such that certain types of materials can very easily by these companies be taken down. They do it in the reverse to suppress religious freedom and human rights, and certainly when it comes to child porn, which is not a protected right anywhere -- hopefully, it never is, and other types of obscenity -- that, too, can be taken down and prosecuted.

But the reverse also is true. In a country like our own, where free speech is so important -- and I'm certain we all believe that -- as you pointed out, 8,000 problematic websites, Rabbi Hier, and there was only one during the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing -- they are proliferating. They are promoting and spewing out hate with real world consequences in terms of people who get attacked. And terrorism, obviously, and the nexus between anti-Semitism and terrorism is very real, and that frightens me as well.

I think we need to revisit -- I'm throwing this out very quickly -- the notion that free speech somehow can be inclusive of anti-Semitic hate in and of its own right, but it also leads very close and quickly to incitement, and I think we have to mount an effort, without doing any damage whatsoever to free speech rights, to this exploitation of our fundamental freedoms, to promote hate.

BAKER: Let me address the issue of the police training. I think, in terms of funding, what ODIHR was looking for in covering the cost of the American police commander is about 50,000 euro. I think the money is not the main problem now.

I think that just somehow it doesn't seem to have the vocal support that really was there when Steven Minikes was our ambassador and when you were in Berlin and taking up this issue. And unless you are prepared, I think, to take it up again, then the money itself is not going to be the main difficulty. It's going to face, really, the lack of, I think, a sense of morale and support from our people, from New Jersey, from the FBI background, who have been key to making this what it is.

I'll leave it to someone else to speak about the Internet, if you don't mind.

BURDETT: I'd like to just mention, briefly, the Anti-Defamation League is the American partner of a group called the International Network Against Cyber Hate. It's a group of NGOs from all over this region who are working cooperatively in different legal contexts within the First Amendment, working with providers, and we will be hosting an upcoming conference with them.

And I would be happy to work with you and your staff to look at this to take advantage of this convening of experts to talk through this very important issue.

HIER: I make two short comments on both questions.

First, with reference to the police training. The Museum of Tolerance has trained 110,000 frontline police. It is probably the largest frontline trainer of police officers in the United States.

Last year four countries sent their senior police to the Museum of Tolerance -- Russia, France, Germany and Canada. And I can tell you the impact on police is enormous after that. And I fully support it's ludicrous to imagine that that is the budget that the United States can come up with to a program that can do so much good.

With respect to hate on the Internet, which I commented before, of course, when it crosses the line, we all support freedom of speech. It's what America is all about. It's the essence of America.

But when an Internet site crosses the line, in our report -- Rabbi Cooper, my colleague, is a world expert on the Internet, and he's sitting here -- he's going to release a new report. One will show a new Internet site which shows how to kill Mexicans. And it shows you how to do it. It goes into details and shows you exactly what happens. What you see is, after the exercise is over, hundreds of dead Mexicans.

Now, the question is whether that crosses the line of whether that is a specific threat against a community. And that is something that there are two things to do -- first of all, to exercise the influence that the Congress has, that NGOs have, that American Jewish organizations and other organizations have, to get to the companies that are hosting that Internet site and put pressure on them to take it down, as we are doing now with the sites involved.

But I'm sure that Rabbi Cooper, my colleague, who, as I said, is a world expert on this subject, will be happy to work with the Congress on these matters.

HASTINGS: Mark, very briefly. We have very little time.

LEVIN: Very quickly, Congressman Smith, the part of the world where I come from, it is a fine line right now. There's great concern about too much government control and intervention in the flow of information, so I agree with you it's something we have to be very careful about to ensure that those that spread a message of hate aren't able to cross that line and not have to worry about adequate prosecution.

HASTINGS: Thank you all very much for a most incisive set of comments and helpful and constructive proposals for us to undertake from legislation all the way back across the board to administrative things that likely can be done under the aegis of the OSCE. The Helsinki Commission is deeply appreciative of all of you.

I appreciate my colleague, Chris Smith, for staying for the whole hearing and the senators being able to be here for as long as they have.

I have one question, and it will put us right at 4:30 and 15 seconds. Senator Grafstein from Canada and I have been in active discussions regarding a counter conference to Durban II. Would you be supportive of such an effort, if he and I and others took the lead in that regard?

HIER: I would be very supportive. At the Simon Wiesenthal Center, we think it should be done. It's the only way to counteract what's happening.

HASTINGS: Stacy?

BURDETT: We have talked about an early 2009 high-level conference, which coincidentally is at the same time, and I think it's one of the reasons we need to move forward with this activity in OSCE. Whether it's a reaction or a proactive step, it comes at the same time, and that's very opportune.

HASTINGS: Mark?

LEVIN: Mr. Chairman, yes.

HASTINGS: Andrew?

BAKER: I think if it's something that is to be undertaken by you, Representative Hastings, and by Jerry Grafstein, we'd think very, very highly of it. So by all means, please.

HASTINGS: I thank you all so very, very much. We are 4:30 on the dot.

The hearing is closed.

[Whereupon the hearing ended at 4:30 p.m.]

END

[No link - is popup from link in post #1 (above)]