Despite objections by Romania’s president, the country’s parliament last week passed a law that bans and prescribes heavy penalties for disseminating antisemitic speech and glorifying Holocaust perpetrators.
Under the law passed on Dec. 17, individuals who distribute online “fascist, Legionary, racist and xenophobic materials” face a prison term of 1.5 to 7.5 years. Legionnaires were a pro-Nazi paramilitary force operating during the reign of collaborator Ion Antonescu during World War II, when Romania was part of Nazi Germany’s Axis.
Those who glorify Antonescu or anyone guilty of genocide charges face a sentence of three months to three years, or a fine, under the law, which expanded Romania’s 2015 legislation against hate speech. Individuals found guilty of establishing or supporting “organizations with a fascist, Legionary, racist or xenophobic character” face three to 10 years in prison under the new law.
Online distribution or production of antisemitic materials is punishable by imprisonment from 1.5 to 7.5 years under the law. “Contesting, approving, justifying or minimizing the Holocaust on Romanian territory” online will result in a prison term of six months to five years.
The law, which is widely referred to in Romania as the Vexler Law because it was submitted by Silviu Vexler, a lawmaker and the president of the Federation of the Jewish Communities of Romania, is among the most robust of its kind in Europe.
Vexler welcomed the law’s passing, which he said “corrected a legislative vacuum” that made it legal to glorify Adolf Hitler in Romania.
His speech in parliament ahead of the vote was marred by a provocation that generated a wave of antisemitic hate speech online.
Before Vexler spoke about the law in parliament, a nationalist lawmaker had placed on the speaker’s podium an A4 page bearing the portraits of eight figures, mostly from the 19th century, who are often considered part of Romania’s literary and intellectual canon.
The page referenced claims that the law was too broad and could result in the banning of luminaries whose writings contained racist or antisemitic rhetoric.
Vexler removed the page, but it was handed back to him. He then tore up the page in front of cameras. The footage led to “an explosion of antisemitic manifestations on social networks, with incitement to maximum violence,” according to the Elie Wiesel National Institute for Holocaust Studies in Romania.
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor wrote in a statement that he “applauds the passage of this law” and “strongly condemns the antisemitic harassment and threats directed” at Vexler. “That a Jewish lawmaker was targeted by fellow MPs and subjected to a wave of online antisemitic incitement for advancing legislation against hate shows the necessity of the law,” Kantor added.
