World news-roundup: French judge dismisses ‘hate crime’ charge against Jewish victim

Country: France

A judge in Paris has dismissed the ‘hate crime’ element to charges brought against a 28-year old Muslim man accused of killing his Jewish neighbour. Kobili Traore threw Sarah Halimi to her death from the window of her third-storey apartment in April, but the charge of murder by racial hatred has now been dropped.

Country: Ukraine

A smoke grenade was thrown into a bookstore during a Holocaust lecture in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Witnesses say the perpetrator wore a ski mask. The Lviv branch of the Jewish youth group Hillel organised the event. Israel’s government said it is concerned about rising anti-Semitism in the country.

Country: Russia

A US-born Chabad rabbi has been thrown out of Russia on account of his ‘extremist’ views, the eighth rabbi to be expelled in the last decade. Rabbi Josef Marozof was kicked out despite working for 12 years in the city of Ulyanovsk, 400 miles east of Moscow. It is part of a wider drive to reduce the number of foreign clerics.

Country:  Iceland

Four of Iceland’s political parties say they support a bill to ban non-medical circumcision of boys before the age of 18, imposing a six-year jail sentence on those who do. The four parties account for just less than half the country’s parliament. A law banning female genital mutilation was introduced in 2005.