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YouTube pulls antisemitic channel funded by European country’s government

A report by Never Again, a leading ani-racist NGO, led to the decision.

By The Algemeiner

Social media giant YouTube has pulled the shutters on a far-right Polish channel that regularly posted content attacking Jews, Ukrainian refugees and the LGBTQ+ community.

The “Media Narodowe” (“National Media”) channel was pulled on Monday following the publication of a report on its activities by the Never Again Association, a leading Polish anti-racist NGO.

In a statement shared with The Algemeiner on Tuesday, the Association confirmed that the channel had been removed from the YouTube platform.

The “National Media” channel is run by Robert Bakiewicz, a far-right activist who organizes the annual ultranationalist “Independence March” through Warsaw on Nov. 11.

According to the Never Again Association, Bakiewicz’s various organizations, including National Media, have received almost $1 million from public funds distributed by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

The report recorded numerous examples of antisemitic content disseminated by National Media. Among them were medieval accusations of blood libel — falsely accusing Jews of murdering Christian children for ritual purposes — as well as claims that the Jews are behind the current war in Ukraine, have falsified the history of the Holocaust for financial gain, are guilty themselves of creating antisemitism, and are trying to appropriate Poland in order to build their own state under the Hebrew name for Poland, “Polin.”

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Examples of antisemitic invective over the last year included a comment from Radoslaw Patlewicz, an antisemitic writer, that there “is hard evidence that the Jews used the blood of humans and animals primarily for medical purposes, as well as for ritual purposes.”

In another broadcast, Patlewicz said that Jews “expressly demand a de facto liquidation of Christianity, so what attitude should Christians feel toward the Jews? It can be said that the Jews are in some ways looking for trouble coming to them, that somebody could harm them.”

“Many minorities are regularly attacked on the National Media channel, including Jews, Muslims, refugees from Ukraine, and LGBT people,” Anna Tatar of the Never Again Association said in a statement accompanying the original report.