Comments by David G. Littman, representative to the United Nations in Geneva of the Association for World Education and the World Union for Progressive Judaism.
An NGO Appeal was sent by us to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, UN Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze (Geneva), Human Rights Council President Martin I. Uhomoibhi, High Commissioner for Human Rights Nevanethem Pillay, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura on January 20, which was followed by an Appeal to Ambassadors in Geneva to condemn the proposed Iranian Defamation of the UN Commemoration Day for Holocaust Victims.
To our knowledge, there was no reaction to this announcement and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered his scholarly contribution in Teheran on January 27. He declared, inter alia: “Reexamining [The Holocaust] is tantamount to cutting the vital arteries of the Zionist regime.”
On January 30, another Urgent Appeal was made by four NGOs to the same personalities after a symbolic call on an Egyptian TV channel by a vociferous Sunni cleric for an Auschwitz-like genocide of Jews by Muslims. Footage from Nazi camps, a Zyklon B gas canister, piles of naked bodies being shovelled into pits, horror upon horror were shown, accompanied by a justification of the holocaust against the Jews, glorified with the usual Qur’anic quotation: “Allah said: “˜Prepare for them whatever force and steed of war you can, to strike terror in the hearts of the Allah’s enemies and your enemies.–. Then came a grotesque genocidal supplication, still not criticized: “This is what we hope will happen, but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims.” This Appeal and the attached MEMRI introduction may be found below. The vital question to be asked is whether there will be a UN reaction. Silence here and now from the UN and UNESCO would ring loud and clear.
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Association for World Education, International Humanist and Ethical Union
World Union for Progressive Judaism, Center for InquiryJoint NGO Urgent APPEAL to
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
UN Director-General Sergei Ordzhonikidze
UNHRC President Martin I. Uhomoibhi
UNHCHR Nevanethem Pillay
UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro MatsuuraAn Egyptian cleric’s TV call for an Auschwitz-like genocide of Jews by Muslims:
“This is what we hope will happen, but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims.”
Friday, 30 January 2009
Your Excellencies,
On 20 January an “˜Urgent Appeal” was sent to you in relation to the UN International Commemoration of the Holocaust on 27 January, concerning the intention of President Muhammad Ahmadinejad to participate in the launching of a book — on that solemn day — about the “fiction” and the “big historical distortion” of the Holocaust. We provided documentation on this from an 18 January Reuters report.
We are copying for you below the introduction (and links) from a MEMRI report of 27 January 2009, providing reliable and irrefutable evidence (*) from a Sunni Egyptian TV Channel al-Rahma (Mercy) — allegedly owned by Egyptian Sheikh Muhammad Hassan — which aired a show on 26 January featuring Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari calling for a repeat of the Holocaust, this time at the hands of Muslims — the latest visible testimony of the genocidal culture of hate that is being constantly propagated in the Middle East without any effective condemnation from the international community or by qualified persons at the United Nations in New York or Geneva. “There is a time to speak.” That time is now!
We call upon your Excellencies individually and collectively to condemn this broadcast without reservation, and to encourage State Members of the United Nations to invoke article VIII of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide; and “to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate” — in regard to article III (c): “Direct and public incitement to commit genocide”. Article IV states: “Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated under article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.”
Yours respectfully,
René Wadlow, Association for World Education, Case Postale 205 — 1196 Gland — Suisse
Roy W. Brown, International Humanist and Ethical Union, 1 Gower Street, London WC1, UK
David G. Littman, World Union for Progressive Judaism, Beith-GIL, 12, Quai du Seujet, 1201 Genève
Hugo Estrella, Center for Inquiry, PO Box 664, Amherst, NY, USA
(Representatives of their respective organisations to the United Nations Office in Geneva)
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cc. Special Rapporteurs: racism; right to freedom of expression; freedom of religion or belief, et al.
* Documentation from MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington, D.C.Special Dispatch — No. 2215 — January 27, 2009 — No. 2215
On January 26, 2009, the day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Sunni Islamist Egyptian channel Al-Rahma [Mercy] TV aired a show featuring Egyptian cleric Amin Al-Ansari. [1] Starting off by examining “the civil strife the Jews have caused throughout the world,” Al-Ansari explained that because of the Jews’ deeds during and after World War I, “it got to the point that the rulers themselves had no solution but to annihilate them.”
Al-Ansari showed viewers how “the holocausts of the Jews in Germany were because of their own deeds – they were killing Germans, kindling civil strife, inciting the people against their rulers, and corrupting the peoples,” underlining his points with World War II footage of the bombing of Berlin, which he compared to present-day Gaza.
Then, saying, “Let’s watch what Germany did to Israel – or rather, to the Jews,” he screened footage of torture and killing of Jews in Dachau, Mauthausen, and Belsen, providing running commentary, and stating, “This is what we hope will happen, but, Allah willing, at the hand of the Muslims.” […]