PARIS (EJP)--- An international Jewish human rights organisation has protested against the distribution in Belgium of a new version of the famous “Protocols of Zion” book which is considered as having inspired the Nazi Holocaust.

In a letter to Belgian Vice Prime Minister and Interior Minister Patrick Dewael, Dr Shimon Samuels, director for international relations of the Paris-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, stressed that "the Protocols have been banned in most European Union member states for incitement to hate and violence.”

The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is a 19th century anti-Semitic Russian literary  forgery that purports to describe a Jewish plot to achieve world domination.

In a new novelized version in French entitled “Les Protocoles de Sion” by Patrick Henderick and Patrice de Bruyne the responsibility for the New York, London and Madrid bombings are attributed to the Jews who, the authors write, “want to create by violence a new order to dominate the world”.

Samuels wrote: "This new edition is an act of group defamation in violation of Belgian anti-discrimination legislation."

According to him, the “Relay - Press Shop” distribution company in Belgium, a subsidiary of French Hachette, was selected as a test to overcome the prohibition in neighbouring France and Germany.

In his letter Samuels urged the company "to immediately remove this anti-Semitic and racist manifesto from the shelves of the shops". “To do otherwise would make Relay co-responsible for any violence fomented by purveying hatred,” he said.

Samuels stressed that the French Interior Minister has prohibited the publishing and distribution of the book.

He called on Belgium "to do no less by taking this occasion to lead an EU-wide ban on hate literature."

The book has been published by a publishing house in the Jersey Island.

The Belgian Interior ministry was unavailable for comment.