Wiesenthal Centre to Echorouk (The Dawn) Algerian News Service: "Your Embrace of Holocaust Denier Robert Faurisson Smears Algeria"

February 23, 2010

Wiesenthal Centre to Echorouk (The Dawn) Algerian News Service: "Your Embrace of Holocaust Denier Robert Faurisson Smears Algeria"

In a letter to Echorouk(The Dawn) of Algeria, Chief Editor Abdelkrim Alem, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr.Shimon Samuels, noted that "one of our members has brought to our attention an interview granted by your Arabic-language edition to Robert Faurisson, a Franco-British self-styled "historian", convicted on several ocassions by French courts for his bigotry and distortions of history that, arguably, serve Nazi and neo-Nazi causes."

The letter continued, "by his psychotic denial of documents, photos, films, eyewitness testimony, biography, research and the continuing discovery of mass graves of Holocaust victims, Faurisson deliberately commits "memoricide" - the murder of the memory of those victims",adding,"his purpose is unmitigated political agitation, whether he is in Paris or Teheran."

Samuels pointed out that "when your newspaper, ECHOROUK, on 2 February 2010, stated that "Egyptian security services took part in the killing of Mahmoud Al Moubhouh in Dubai", this was legitimate editorial speculation"

"On the other hand,when, Faurisson's statement that "the Holocaust is a lie and the gas chambers a fabrication" is disseminated by your news service, this is an insult to Algeria."

The letter explained: "he who whitewashes the Holocaust also legitimizes the crimes of Vichy France and its officials. These would include Maurice Papon, who :

—was convicted for crimes against humanity for deporting over 1.600 Jews, while Police Secretary-General of Bordeaux in World War Two

—in the Algerian war (1954-1962), Papon led a repressve policy against your people as Prefect of the Constantine Department

—as Paris Police Chief, on 17 October 1961, he ordered the suppression of a peaceful pro-FLN demonstration in Paris, leaving around 300 Algerians dead and many more wounded

—in 1962 Papon was in charge of the massacre at the Charonne metro station during an anti-OAS demonstration"

The Centre emphasized that "Faurisson and his companions, who live from their own Holocaust industry of denial, are no friends of the Arabs. Their retinue are racists, LePenists, xenophobes and Skinheads bent on new deportations of immigrants, including Algerian"

"Your embrace of Faurisson and his perverted ideology is a smear on both the Algerian and the Jewish movements for national liberation", concluded Samuels

For further information contact Shimon Samuels on 0033(0)609770158