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Malmö blacklisted over Israel tennis shutout

Malmö has been banned from hosting Davis Cup tennis matches for five years following the city's controversial decision to stage Sweden's clash with Israel in an empty arena.

Published: 3 April 2009 09:40 CEST
Malmö blacklisted over Israel tennis shutout

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) said on Thursday they condemned the decision

by the city government of Malmo to refuse to allow spectators to attend the March 6-9 tie which was won by Israel.

Malmo only allowed teams, officials, guests and media to watch the tie, fearful of demonstrations taking place over Israel’s bloody December offensive in Gaza.

As well as a five-year ban, Sweden was warned it would suffer an automatic loss of choice of ground for the next tie were a similar situation to occur in the future.

Furthermore, all host city contracts entered into by the Swedish Tennis Association must guarantee that the tie will be open to the public.

The Davis Cup Committee also denied the request of the Swedish Tennis Association to waive its obligation to provide a minimum of $15,000 against gate receipts and levied an additional fine of $25,000.

ISRAEL

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street

A former Israeli soldier was attacked in the German capital Berlin, police said Saturday, with one or several unknown assailants spraying him with an irritant and throwing him to the ground.

Published: 10 October 2021 09:26 CEST
Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street
Israeli soldiers on operation near the Gaza Strip. Photo: dpa | Ilia Yefimovich

The 29-year-old was wearing a top with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) logo when the attackers started harassing him on Friday about his religion, the police added, calling it “an anti-Semitic attack”.

Officers are seeking the assailants, who fled immediately after the attack, on suspicion of a politically-motivated crime.

Saturday is the second anniversary of an attack by a far-right gunman on a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle, who killed two in a rampage when he failed to break into the house of worship.

It was one of a string of incidents that led authorities to declare the far right and neo-Nazis Germany’s top security threat.

Also this week, a musician claimed he was turned away from a hotel in eastern city Leipzig for wearing a Star-of-David pendant.

While the allegations prompted a fierce response from a Jewish community unsettled by increasing anti-Semitic crimes, several investigations have been mounted into contradictory accounts of the incident.

In 2019, police recorded 2,032 anti-Semitic crimes, an increase of 13 percent year-on-year.

“The threat is complex and comes from different directions” from jihadists to the far right, the federal government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism Felix Klein said recently.

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