wiesenthal centre warns jews on athens

May. 21, 2004 14:44 | Updated May. 21, 2004 22:24
Wiesenthal Center to Jews: Don't attend Olympics
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATHENS, Greece

The Simon Wiesenthal Center said Friday it would not lift a travel advisory to Greece because its
new government has not taken steps to fight anti-Semitism.

In a letter also sent to the International Olympic Committee, the Center called Greece the "greatest net producer of anti-Semitism in Europe" and said Premier Costas Caramanlis had done little to fight anti-Semitism.

"We have made repeated attempts to convince the Greek authorities to take appropriate action," the center said.

The Los Angeles-based center issued the travel advisory in December after a number of incidents, including the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and Holocaust memorials and an art exhibition in an Athens gallery that it said glorified suicide bombers.

Caramanlis' New Democracy party defeated the Socialists in March 7 national elections.

The center has said its 16,000 members will honor the advisory and not travel to Athens for the Aug. 13-29 Olympic Games unless the government "launches a campaign against anti-Semitic expression."

The Israeli government has not endorsed the center's campaign.

More than 90 percent of Greece's 80,000 Jews perished in Nazi death camps or during the German occupation of Greece in World War II.