A Pakistani envoy to the United Nations was slammed for accusing Holocaust survivors of a campaign against Muslim symbols.
A coalition of nine non-governmental organizations took the offensive against Masood Khan, Pakistan’s representative to the U.N.’s Geneva-based bodies.
“In many instances Holocaust survivors, instead of promoting such harmony, are campaigning against Muslim symbols in the Western world,” Khan was quoted as saying in a Sept. 25 address to the U.N. Human Rights Council, in a letter to him signed by a number of NGOs.
“They should be the most ardent advocates against discrimination,” Kahn said in the address. “Islamophobia is also a cruel form of anti-Semitism.”
Kahn was addressing the body on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an umbrella group for Islamic nations.
“We are unaware of any such ‘campaigning’ by Holocaust survivors,” said the Sept. 28 letter signed by nine groups including United Nations Watch, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and the World Union for Progressive Judaism. “Moreover, even if it were true that individuals were engaged in such an alleged effort, it would constitute unjustifiable stereotyping to label an entire group — particularly survivors of a genocide — on the basis of the alleged actions of a few. We believe that Holocaust survivors, elderly men and women who are often frail and suffering from illness, are deserving of our sympathy and respect, not denigration in a speech at the United Nations.”
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