{"id":10768,"date":"2015-08-26T19:32:02","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T16:32:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/?p=10768"},"modified":"2015-09-10T11:40:06","modified_gmt":"2015-09-10T08:40:06","slug":"adc-memorial-supported-fare-statement-against-campaign-of-vilification-of-the-never-again-association","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/news\/adc-memorial-supported-fare-statement-against-campaign-of-vilification-of-the-never-again-association\/","title":{"rendered":"ADC \u201cMemorial\u201d supported FARE statement against campaign of vilification of the \u201cNever Again\u201d association"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"western\" lang=\"en\">Anti-discrimination center \u201cMemorial\u201d supports the statement issued by FARE (Football Against Racism), which spoke out against vilification of representatives of its member organization in Poland, \u201cNever Again\u201d. For many years FARE network brings together various initiative groups and associations for joint action combating discrimination and racism in football. Anti-discrimination center \u201cMemorial\u201d is proud to be a member of the FARE network and of having an opportunity to participate in campaigns against racism and discrimination. Organizations belonging to FARE network should not be prosecuted and subjected to threats for their anti-racist activities.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">In August 2015 Zbigniew Boniek, President of the Polish Football Federation (PZPN), published a tweet criticizing Polish association \u201cNever Again\u201d. This happened immediately after UEFA imposed sanctions against \u201cLech\u201d football club from Poznan for its fans displaying a banner which read \u201cLegion Pila &#8211; blood of our race\u201d during a qualification match against FC \u201cSarajevo\u201d and which was considered racist by the UEFA. The Polish football club was punished for this by having to conduct a home match \u201cbehind closed doors\u201d and a fine of 50 thousand euros. Polish Football Federation appealed against the fine and issued a statement declaring zero tolerance for racism and Nazism. It stated that according to the club&#8217;s fans this banner did not contain racist remarks. Representatives of the \u201cNever Again\u201d association explained that each club had received information on how to combat discrimination as well as a list of racist symbols and slogans used by football fans, among which was this slogan (\u201cBlood of our race\u201d is a line from a song by a famous neo-Nazi group) . Rafal Pankowsky (\u201cNever Again\u201d) also noted that earlier both the Polish Football Federation and the Ministry of Sports had supported this initiative.<script src=\"\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">According to Boniek, it had been the work of observers from FARE that led to the imposition of sanctions against the Polish football club. FARE network believes that it was obvious that \u201cNever Again\u201d had fellen victims of vilification because of their fight against racism and against the presence of extreme-right in the football scene, but also because the association had been involved in monitoring of football matches.<br \/>\nIn his Twitter account, which is read by some 300 thousand people, Zbigniew Boniek posted links to articles published on right-wing websites, which condemned \u201cNever Again\u201d and FARE. Besides that in his tweet he referred to one of the association\u2019s members, Jacek Pursky, as a \u201cred scum and Communist agent\u201d.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">Open letter expressing solidarity with \u201cNever Again\u201d association and condemning Boniek\u2019s actions was signed by 52 Polish NGOs and was published in the country\u2019s leading newspapers.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\">FARE\u2019s monitoring system was accredited with UEFA and it consists of experienced and well-trained independent experts. Observers are not associated with the activities of UEFA or any other football organizations. Rafal Pankowsky explained that \u201cNever Again\u201d had no interest neither in the number, nor the total amount of fines issued for football clubs. A while ago the head of UEFA\u2019s directorate for social responsibility spoke in Warsaw about how the funds received in payment of fines had been spent on sports activities for people with disabilities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en\">Actions vilifying FARE observers<\/span><span lang=\"en\">, <\/span><span lang=\"en\">as well as associations fighting racism,<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">are unacceptable<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">in terms of<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">fair play<\/span><span lang=\"en\">, e<\/span><span lang=\"en\">specially in light of<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">the recent efforts<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">to identify expressions of racism and xenophobia<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">in the big football<\/span><span lang=\"en\">. <\/span><span lang=\"en\">FARE<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">states that<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">accusations<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">of this kind<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">by the<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">management of football<\/span><span lang=\"en\"> federations <\/span><span lang=\"en\">should immediately stop.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\"><span lang=\"en\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span lang=\"en\">The statement<\/span> <span lang=\"en\">is available here: <\/span><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><u><a href=\"http:\/\/www.farenet.org\/news\/statement-on-the-campaign-of-vilification-of-the-never-again-association\/\" target=\"_blank\"><span lang=\"en-US\">http:\/\/www.farenet.org\/news\/statement-on-the-campaign-of-vilification-of-the-never-again-association\/<\/span><\/a><\/u><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anti-discrimination center \u201cMemorial\u201d supports the statement issued by FARE (Football Against Racism), which spoke out against vilification of representatives of its member organization in Poland, \u201cNever Again\u201d. For many years FARE network brings together various initiative groups and associations for&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[184,379,287],"strategy_cases":[],"campaign":[],"archive":[],"filter-content":[],"regions":[],"class_list":["post-10768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-anti-fascism-2-en","tag-fare-en","tag-human-rights-defenders-en"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls_v2":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","pub-thumb":"","post-thumb":"","wcicon":"","wcsquare":"","wcsmall":"","wcstandard":"","wcbig":"","wcfixedheightsmall":"","wcfixedheightmedium":"","wcfixedheight":"","wccarouselsmall":"","wccarousel":"","wcslider":""},"post_excerpt_stackable_v2":"<p>Anti-discrimination center \u201cMemorial\u201d supports the statement issued by FARE (Football Against Racism), which spoke out against vilification of representatives of its member organization in Poland, \u201cNever Again\u201d. For many years FARE network brings together various initiative groups and associations for joint action combating discrimination and racism in football. Anti-discrimination center \u201cMemorial\u201d is proud to be a member of the FARE network and of having an opportunity to participate in campaigns against racism and discrimination. Organizations belonging to FARE network should not be prosecuted and subjected to threats for their anti-racist activities. In August 2015 Zbigniew Boniek, President of the Polish&hellip;<\/p>\n","category_list_v2":"<a href=\"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/category\/news\/\" rel=\"category tag\">News<\/a>","author_info_v2":{"name":"ad666","url":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/author\/ad666\/"},"comments_num_v2":"0 comments","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10768"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10768\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"strategy_cases","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/strategy_cases?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"campaign","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campaign?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"archive","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/archive?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"filter-content","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/filter-content?post=10768"},{"taxonomy":"regions","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adcmemorial.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regions?post=10768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}