Playing the race card

The race war has begun - your skin is your uniform in the battle for the survival of your kind. This is the catchline used by a distributor of racist music to market a CD-ROM computer game called Ethnic Cleansing. First advertised on Martin Luther King Day by Resistance Records, the object of the game is to kill as many nonwhites and Jews as possible.

Sadly, with racist groups increasingly using computer games to spread their message of hate, this is not an isolated case. Other similarly disturbing titles available via the Internet make a game out of shooting blacks or running a concentration camp.

The objective of these so-called 'white power' games is generally to kill, in large numbers, blacks, Hispanics or any other ethnic group subjected to the hatred of racists.

Their content is truly shocking. For example, in Ethnic Cleansing, players dressed in either Ku Klux Klan robes or as skinheads roam the streets and subways murdering 'predatory subhumans' and their Jewish 'masters', with ape sounds being made when black people are killed.

The proliferation of games such as this is part of a wider strategy by extremists to recruit young people. Matt Hale of the white supremacist World Church Of The Creator, which features free racist games on its website, is keen to enlist teens to his cause.

He said: 'The younger the better. We mean to utilise whatever means we can to achieve our goals and bring new faces to our church.'

One of the games featured on Hale's site is a modified version of the 3D shooter game Escape From Castle Wolfenstein. However, in this version, when you shoot a black man, a racist comment appears.

As with Hale's version of Escape From Castle Wolfenstein, many of these games are altered versions of already existing nonracist titles. New game levels and characters have been created by taking advantage of the built-in modification features of games available on the open market.

'It's a disgusting, sick perversion of the original games where the manipulated versions give the players points for killing as many non-whites and Jews as possible,' said Abraham Foxman, national director of The Anti-Defamation League. 'Racists are finding ways to exploit technology to spread their message of white supremacy, anti-Semitism and hate to a mass audience.'

The Commission For Racial Equality is also calling for these games to be banned. A spokesman for it said: 'It's deplorable these games are available on the Web and are being used to spread bigotry and prejudice. It is vital that anyone influencing the thoughts of young people encourage honest debate around racism.'

But despite expressions of disgust from these organisations, there is a large market for hate. Renowned American neo-Nazi Gary Lauk runs a website containing free hate games. He claims more than 12,000 of these were downloaded in January.

The Council Of Europe recently drafted proposals to make all racist Internet postings illegal, but companies on the Web and civil liberties groups are resisting these measures, saying they are unenforceable.

But, whatever the outcome, this is a battle that must be won.

For more information about anti-racism issues in the UK, visit the Commission For Racial Equality at cre.gov.uk or the Institute Of Race Relations at irr.org.uk