The Simon Wiesenthal Center called on the New York Archdiocese to distance itself from a Croatian singer it considers racist.
Mark Perkovic, a Croatian rock star known by the stage name Thompson, is slated to perform twice this week in New York at a venue reportedly owned by the Catholic Church. In a letter to the archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan, the center urged the Church to ensure that it had no association with Perkovic.
“Inviting this man to sing in North America is tantamount to inviting a singer to extol ethnic cleansing in Darfur,” said Rabbi Abraham Cooper, the Wiesenthal Center’s associate dean.
Thompson concerts are known to feature nationalist imagery and slogans, and to attract fans wearing the insignia of the Ustashe regime, a Nazi-backed fascist movement responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews during World War II.
Thompson is also scheduled to perform in Los Angeles, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, Toronto and Vancouver.
