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| Muslim council to ‘boycott’ Holocaust Memorial Day
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Iqbal Sacranie, MCB secretary general
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Representatives of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) will not be attending Holocaust Memorial Day for the second year in a row - despite suggestions in the last few months that the organisatoin could change its stance.
The main Muslim umbrella group believes the day should be more ‘inclusive’ towards peoples of other races and faiths and says much of the rest of the world views the west as practising ‘double standards’ and ‘devalues’ the lives of non-westerners.
There had been hope that the MCB would reconsider its position on attending the national day, to be held this year in Cardiff, Wales, on January 27, after a spokesman said at the end of last year that it would be holding a meeting to decide on the issue.
But The Telegraph newspaper reported last Friday that the main Muslim umbrella group had taken the decision not to attend the memorial, whose theme this year is ‘One person can make a difference’.
Calls for Genocide Day
In an open letter in The Guardian newspaper published on September 20, 2005, which appears on the MCB’s website, its secretary general, Iqbal Sacranie stated: “The MCB unhesitatingly and wholeheartedly supports the prime minister’s determination that the horrendous crimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust are never forgotten.”
But he added: “After the world vowed ‘never again’ at the end of the Second World War, though, we have seen the same barbarism again, against peoples in Vietnam, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Chechnya and recently in Darfur.
“So we said that our common humanity called upon us to also recognise the crimes perpetrated against other people, and we called for the establishment of an EU genocide memorial day.
“Such a day would help dispel the — frankly racist — notion that some people are to be regarded as being more equal than others.”
Sacranie also asked why, if the Holocaust Memorial Day includes non-Jewish victims, this isn’t reflected in the ‘actual title’ of the day.
Nothing has changed
On the MCB’s website, spokeswoman Shenaz Yusuf added: “We stated this then and we repeat it now: ‘We abhor all forms of racial or religious discrimination.’ Let there be no further denying or misrepresentation of our position.”
Lord Janner, chairman of the Holocaust Educational Trust and vice president of World Jewish Congress, said the MCB’s decision to ‘boycott’ the day, along with its failure to condemn the Iranian President’s evil denial of the Holocaust, is ‘sad and unacceptable’.
“All of us, Muslims and Jews alike, must remember the Nazi murders of the past as a key in our battle to prevent such racist horrors in the future,” he commented.
“I would have thought the many Muslims that have taken part in local commemorative events across the country over the years, would not understand this position.”
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