“The representatives of these parties spread racist and anti-immigrant discourse in Italian society and have obtained the adoption of a particularly strict immigration law (the Bossi-Fini law, named for the leaders of these two parties), which was recently called into question by the Italian constitutional court,” says Doudou Diene, a UN special rapporteur on human rights, in the report.

In a letter to Mr. Diene, Italy’s Ambassador Paolo Bruni says his government was surprised to see the two coalition partners included on the “list of openly racist and xenophobic political and para-military groups.”

The letter says Rome was also surprised to find the Italian government referred to as another example of a coalition government “between the right and extreme right.”

“I wish to recall that the National Alliance and the Northern League are member parties of a government which has made the fight against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, a priority of its political action,” Amb. Bruni wrote.

The controversial Bossi-Fini law, he pointed out, “contributes to the prevention and combating of clandestine immigration and its criminal exploitation, thus improving quality of life of immigrants and discouraging the trafficking of human beings.”

In his report, Mr. Diene says racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are also on the “upswing” in the rest of Europe.

“New targets of discrimination—immigrants, refugees and non-nationals—have now been added to the traditional victims of these scourges: Jews, Arabs, Asians and Africans,” he notes.

He says the rise in racism worldwide followed the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

“The rebirth of racist and xenophobic movements in Western Europe today needs to be analyzed against the background of the socio-economic changes taking place, including the politicization of immigration.”

In Western Europe, Mr. Diene says, the resurgence of extremist right-wing politics has been seen as a phenomenon caused by economic crisis or rapid influx of non-occidental immigrants into hitherto “homogenous” societies.

In France, “the leading racist and xenophobic party” is the Front National, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, who garnered 17 percent of the national vote in the 2002 presidential elections, according to the report.

One of the main goals of the Front’s platform, “based on hate and exclusion,” is to give preference for jobs and housing to nationals and Europeans, “and immediately expel all illegal immigrants.”

In Germany, the three main xenophobic and anti-Semitic parties are the German People’s Union, the German National Democratic Party and the Republicans, adds Mr. Diene.

The latest annual report of the country’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution reports that there were 169 extreme right-wing groups in Germany by the end of 2003 (compared with 146 in 2002).

In Britain, the leading extremist political group is the British National Party (BNP), which in the 2003 election obtained the best result ever by an extreme right party since the 1970s.

A study conducted by the European Union Accession Monitoring Program states that the BNP has honed its “racism into a specifically anti-Muslim message.”

A new racist party, the “November 9th Society, which was established in 2004, “openly proclaims its status as a British Nazi party with a platform based on the theories of Hitler and the superiority of the Aryan race,” according to the UN study.

Following Austria’s 1999 election, the extreme-right Freedom Party (FPO) became the country’s second most popular, with 27.7 percent of the vote, and joined the conservative People Party in the government.

“The Austrian experience also illustrates a grave danger threatening democratic systems in Europe and throughout the world: the influence of the extreme right on traditionally democratic parties,” says the UN report.

In the Netherlands, the major peddlers of hate and xenophobia have been right-wing parties, such as the Centrumdemcraten, Nieuwe Nationale Partij, the Nederlands Blok and a host of other extra-parliamentary groups.

The study also singles out racism in Belgium, Spain, Switzerland and Russia. The situation in Russia is “becoming particularly worrisome, with an increase in violence against foreigners, particularly Caucasians, Asians and Africans.”

The study finds that North America, defined as the United States and Canada, is an area of contrasts.

The two countries are not only havens for countless immigrants from around the world—“the promise land” of wealth and equal opportunities—but have also developed “some of the world’s most racist and xenophobic ideologies and movements.”

Even after slavery ended and equality was proclaimed by U.S. law, the vast majority of Native Americans, African Americans and now Latinos, “live in the poorest and most marginalized social sectors,” says Mr. Diene’s report.

The number of extremist groups in the region, such as the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazi groups and people’s militias, is believed to have reached at least 540 by the late 1990s.

“To this is added the post-Sept. 11 situation, which has brought a resurgence of activity among racist and xenophobic groups and increased the level of violence, in particular against specific individuals and communities: Muslims, Arabs and Asians,” the report continues.

Due to its geographical proximity to the United States, Canada is not immune to these phenomena, the report adds. “Groups that preach racial or ethnic hatred do exist there.”

The study also identifies racial groups in Asia (including in India and Japan), Africa (including Rwanda and Sudan), South America (including the Indigenous people in Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala) and the Middle East (including Lebanon and the West Bank and Gaza) whose members are victims of discrimination.

“The current realities of racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia and related intolerance should be acknowledged as major threats to peace, security and human development,” it concludes.