US introduces UN resolution on Holocaust denial

Member states urged "to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event" and "condemns without reservation any denial of the Holocaust."

By AIMEE RHODES
UN building 88 (photo credit: )
UN building 88
(photo credit: )
The United States introduced a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday condemning any denial of the Holocaust and urging member states to reject any efforts to deny the Holocaust. The resolution urges "all Member States unreservedly to reject any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part, or any activities to this end." The draft, which has more than 50 sponsors, is slated to go to a vote on Friday. The resolution follows, but does not mention, a controversial conference in Teheran last month sponsored by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that brought together well-known Holocaust deniers. "We certainly deplored the conference when it was hosted in Teheran," Benjamin Chang, deputy spokesman to the United States Mission to the United Nations, told The Jerusalem Post. "The conference was the latest manifestation of this kind of state-sponsored denial of the Holocaust. This resolution is meant to reiterate the opposition of the international community to these kinds of denials and to remind us of the broad consensus achieved in November 2005 to establish a UN day commemorating the victims of the Holocaust." Chang was referring to Resolution A/60/7 - the first Israeli-initiated resolution ever to make it to the floor of the General Assembly for a vote - designating January 27 as the annual International Day of Commemoration in memory of Holocaust victims. Chang said that the current resolution "looks back but it also looks forward and in looking ahead it urges all members to reject any activities, conferences or statements that deny or minimize or question the Holocaust." The UN will hold the second annual observance this year on January 29 which will be webcast live as part of the "Holocaust and the United Nations" outreach program which was established under the 2005 resolution. As part of the outreach program the UN will also launch a new Web site that day to provide survivor testimony, information and materials to equip speakers with the tools needed to conduct briefings on the Holocaust. The site, developed by Yad Vashem, The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority, the USC Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education and the Memorial de La Shoah, will be posted at www.un.org/holocaustremembrance.