ECI Launches Petition to Eliminate Holocaust Denial at UN
As people all over the world celebrated the end of World War II and victory over the tyranny of the Nazi regime, the European Coalition for Israel (ECI) on Tuesday launched a global petition to ban Holocaust denial at the United Nations (UN).
The United Nations was created after the war as a beacon of hope for a new world, where the atrocities committed by the Nazis could never be repeated. However, to this very day, Holocaust denial is heard in speeches in this global organization—from the UN Conference against Racism in Geneva to the General Assembly in New York.
“This is deeply tragic and offensive to those who lost their loved ones in the Holocaust and to those who barely survived the Nazi genocide and today are old and frail,” says ECI founding director Tomas Sandell.
Earlier in the year the new president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, issued a ban on Holocaust denial on the premises of the European Parliament in Brussels and Strasbourg. ECI now hopes that the UN will follow suit.
“How can we honor the victims of the Holocaust if we still allow outright denial and trivialization of the Holocaust?” asked ECI chairman Harald Eckert. “Although we cannot ban anyone from telling lies or even insulting the victims, we can—and we must—prevent this from taking place inside the United Nations.”
The petition is part of a three-year campaign to raise awareness of the tragic events that took place in Europe only 70 years ago. This began with the Wannsee Conference in 1942, which aimed to completely eliminate the Jewish people and to deport local communities across Europe to the Nazi death camps.
“Those who today try to deny or trivialize this greatest crime against mankind are the same people who want to finish what Hitler started,” said ECI board member David Adeola. ’This is why it is important that citizens of good will in all UN member states sign the petition and send a clear signal to the UN about what type of moral standard they expect from this world organization.”
Adeola, who is a native of Nigeria but now resides in Britain, hopes that the campaign will also spread to Africa and other parts of the world where the Nazi atrocities may be less known.
The petition was officially launched in the European Parliament in Brussels on Tuesday, Victory Day, where members of parliament signed it. It will be presented in the United Nations in New York in time for the next General Assembly in September 2012. Click here sign the petition.
