Racism and anti-semitism has proliferated on the internet, spawning more than 2,100 websites, the European Union's racism monitoring unit reported yesterday.

Most of the sites are based in the US, but in Germany alone, the internal security service recorded the existence of 300 registered hate websites last year, up from 200 in 1998.

"What was proscribed, undercover, shameful and liable to prosecution in the past is today readily available and viewable on the net," the European monitoring centre on racism and xenophobia said in its annual report.

"Movements which were in decline in both Europe and the US have received a new lease of life thanks to the sites they have created."

Increases in violent racially motivated incidents were reported last year in France, Germany and Sweden, but differing definitions and statistical methods made EU-wide comparisons difficult, it said.

In Britain, racist incidents recorded by police rose by 66% per cent to 23,05. This was believed to be a result of better recording and the wider definition applied to such incidents after the inquiry into the 1993 murder of Stephen Lawrence in London.

The report also said that racism in police and security forces was a problem across the continent. In Belgium, for example, one in nine violent incidents was blamed on police and gendarmes.

Beate Winkler, the centre's director, pointed to worrying discrepancies between official and unofficial reporting of racist violence: the Netherlands figure was 200 incidents for 1999, but the Anne Frank Foundation estimated that the true number ranged between 800 and 8,000.

The EU centre had an uncomfortable few months this year because it is situated in the Austrian capital, Vienna, the target of unprecedented sanctions by all 14 other member states after Jörg Haider's anti-immigrant Freedom Party entered government after doing well in national elections.

In the 1999 election campaign in Austria "a climate of fear and intolerance was ... stoked up against the immigrant and Jewish community," the report said.

Jean Kahn, director of the Vienna centre, said he wanted anti-racism measures agreed in the EU's Amsterdam treaty - which was ratified in 1997 - fully implemented in all member states. And the chairman of the European parliament's citizens' rights committee, Graham Watson, argued that clear rules had to be set governing when a member state could be suspended for failing to meet accepted standards on democracy and human rights.

Some governments want this written clearly into the treaty of Nice, due to be drawn up at the EU summit on the Cte d'Azur next month.

Related special report
Special report: Free speech on the net

Related articles
The issue explained: regulating the net

Useful links
European commission against racism
Juriscom
International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism
Simon Wiesenthal centre
Hatewatch
Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain
NetFreedom

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