WJC calls for UN Holocaust exhibition to greet Ahmadinejad
World Jewish Congress urges Annan to restage UN Holocaust exhibition during next week's visit by Iranian president; ‘hate speech which incites violence should be met with condemnation and at the very least must be countered with education and affirmation of human dignity,’ group’s president writes to secretary-general
In a letter to the Secretary-General, Mr. Bronfman cited President Ahamadinejad's claim that the Holocaust is a 'myth', Ahmadinejad's own Holocaust-denial conference and exhibition of Holocaust cartoons, Iran's sponsorship of international terrorism, and its pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Mr. Bronfman wrote: "As the first Secretary-General to compel UN recognition of the Holocaust and condemnation of anti-Semitism, including last year's historic Holocaust exhibition in the UN Headquarters, we urge you to make an unambiguous statement of truth and morality, by remounting the Holocaust exhibition during the General Assembly's High-Level Segment the week of September 18th. There can be no lesser response to one who enters the United Nations Headquarters to flout its very premise before a world audience. Nor is it any infringement on his freedom of expression or on UN regulations to bring back an exhibition that states irrefutable historic facts."
Mr. Bronfman emphasized, "Hate speech which incites violence should be met with condemnation and at the very least must be countered with education and affirmation of human dignity."
The United Nations first staged the Holocaust exhibition in its headquarters in January 2005, to coincide with the UN's Special Session in Commemoration of the Sixtieth Anniversary of the Liberation of the Nazi Concentration Camps.
