SWC Expresses Concern over social media post by NBA Portland Trailblazers player Jusuf Nurkic

April 15, 2021

The Simon Wiesenthal Center expressed grave concern about an image posted on the first day of Ramadan, on Portland Center Jusuf Nurkic's social media platforms. The post was a photograph of a Zagreb (Croatia) mosque, which was originally built as a museum in 1938, but was turned into a mosque by the fascist Ustasha regime in 1943, as a gesture to honor the support of Bosnian Moslems for the genocidal regime of the Ustasha. The Ustasha carried out a policy of genocide against Serbs, Jews, and Roma, and also murdered thousands of anti-fascist Catholic Croatians.

If Nukric’s motivation was to express support or sympathy or nostalgia for the Ustasha, who murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent residents of Croatia, the SWC unequivocally denounces such statements.

The posts have since been deleted.

For additional information please contact the Israel Office of the Wiesenthal Center: Tel: 972-2-563-1274 or Tel: 972-50-721-4156, follow the Center on Facebook, or @simonwiesenthal and @EZuroff for news updates sent directly to your Twitter feed.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center is one of the largest international Jewish human rights organizations with over 400,000 member families in the United States. It is an NGO at international agencies including the United Nations, UNESCO, the OSCE, the OAS, the Council of Europe and the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino).