Indonesian leader opposes Ahmadinejad

A former president of Indonesia came out against Holocaust denial in Iran. Abdurrahman Wahid told an interfaith conference in Bali on Tuesday that he opposes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s dismissals of the Holocaust as a myth. “I visited Auschwitz’s Museum of Holocaust and I saw many shoes of the dead people in Auschwitz. Because of this, I believe Holocaust happened,” said Wahid, a moderate who led the world’s most populous Muslim nation from 1999 to 2001. “Although I am a good friend of Ahmadinejad, I have to say that he is wrong. This is important, courage to say the right thing. I don’t have favoritism here. The Jews, Europeans, Arabs are all the same.” The conference was sponsored by LibForAll, an American foundation that combats Islamic extremism, and The Simon Wiesenthal Center. Indonesia does not have formal ties with Israel.