UNITED NATIONS, November 10. /TASS/. The Third Committee of the United Nations General Assembly has passed the Russia-initiated resolution "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance," a TASS correspondent reported.
The document was supported by 117 countries while 53, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Japan, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Ukraine, and the United States voted against. Nine countries, including Switzerland and Turkey, abstained.
Russia has been putting forward this resolution every year since 2005. The document strongly condemns incidents linked with the glorification and propaganda of Nazism, welcomes efforts to preserve historical truth, recommends that measures be taken to avert the denial of crimes against humanity, and to prevent revisionism with respect of World War II. The resolution also "strongly condemns the use in educational settings of educational material and rhetoric that promulgate racism, discrimination, hatred and violence on the basis of ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief."