Russian academicians demand ban of Protocols of the Elders of Zion
The Russian Public Chamber is pushing to ban the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a controversial book which is considered to be one of ideological justification of the Holocaust.
Secretary of the Public Chamber academician Evgeny Velikhov sent a formal request to the Prosecutor General Yury Chaika to acknowledge the book as extremist literature aimed at igniting inter-ethnic and religious hatred.Earlier, a group of prominent historians filed a complaint to the prosecutor’s office of Moscow’s northern district demanding to impose a ban on the book. However, the body declined it citing the results of a certain psychological expertise. Velikhov asked the Prosecutor General’s Office to check why, in response to calls from the public, the prosecutor’s office of Moscow’s northern district concluded that Protocols “are of political and educational character” and “do not contain information urging for action against other nationalities.” “Such an outrageous, unlawful and anti-scientific position found support of Moscow prosecutors but distribution of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion on the territory of Russia represents a serious threat to inter-ethnic accord and the integrity of our country,” Velikhov said in the letter. Academician Yury Pivovarov and Valery Tishkov, who are among the authors of the first complaint, reminded that a fraudulent anti-Semitic text appeared describing “a Jewish plan for achieving global domination” in Tsarist Russia in 1903 thanks to efforts of the secret police. It was translated into many languages. The book was favored by Adolf Hitler and some scholars even call it a “warrant for genocide”. In Nazi Germany it was studied at schools as a real historical document, although by that time the fraud had already been exposed. The Protocols are currently available in multiple languages, both online and in print:
