BUENOS AIRES/NEW YORK (EJP)—The World Jewish Congress (WJC) has voiced its concern about the recent official registration in Argentina of a neo-Nazi party.
Bandera Vecinal or ‘Local Flag’ in English, an ultranationalist organization led by Alejandro Biondini, has been approved as a political party. The party, which is expected to participate in the 2015 presidential elections, had signed up the required 4,000 members.
‘’This ugly party espouses the ideology and revels in the trappings of the Hitler regime, and it should be banned, shunned and isolated, not accepted into politics,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald S. Lauder.
DAIA, the Jewish political representative umbrella group said Biondini “has publicly and repeatedly supported the figure of Adolf Hitler and Nazism’’. The group urged to not legitimize as a political party ‘’those who justify hatred and encouraging violence against the Jewish community and others in our country.”
In 1988, Biondini led chants of “Death to traitors, cowards and Jews” at a gathering of extreme-right demonstrators in Buenos Aires.
“It is troubling that an openly neo-Nazi party can arise in this country. It’s inconsistent with the culture of acceptance and diversity among the Argentine people, whose country served as refuge for victims of the Nazi regime, a regime Biondini reveres,” said Claudio Epelman, Executive Director of the Latin American Jewish Congress, the Argentine-based arm of WJC.
“We will monitor the activities and discourse of Biondini’s party and will denounce any hate speech and incitement of violence against any minority groups in our country,’’ he added.