SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTRE

64 avenue Marceau - 75008 Paris - Tel. +33147237637 - Fax: +33147208401

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

 

Wiesenthal Centre and Olokaustos to Italian Minister for Europe: "A

Principal Motor for Holocaust Denial in Europe Operates at the University

of Teramo - Tomorrow's Invitation to French Revisionist Faurisson Must Be

Withdrawn"

 

Paris and Venice, 16 May 2007

 

 

In a joint letter to Italian Minister for Europe Emma Bonino, the Simon

Wiesenthal Centre's Director for International Relations, Dr Shimon

Samuels, and Giovanni De Martis and Giovanni Costantini, President and

Vice-President, respectively, of the Italian Institute for Historical

Studies-Olokaustos, expressed alarm at the invitation to convicted French

Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, to speak tomorrow at the University of

Teramo.

 

Samuels noted the Minister's "record at the European Parliament on the

battle against intolerance, and her sensitivity to history."

 

He added that "both the European Parliament and the Commission have

expressed a clear consensus against the denial of the Holocaust and

apologia for genocide, campaigning for countermeasures among all

member-states."

 

De Martis and Costantini stated that "a principal motor for such

revisionism in Europe is the University of Teramo's so-called 'Enrico

Mattei' Master programme in Middle East Studies, chaired by Claudio Moffa."

 

They pointed out that, on his website

http://www.mastermatteimedioriente.it, Moffa claims that the aim of his

programme is "to furnish a consciousness of the complexity of the Middle

East and Mediterranean region and its conflicts, to preserve, empower and

develop in such professional field a dialogue between civil society and

different countries through culture, history, religion and economic

development", to train "experts destined for political-diplomatic careers,

peace-keepers, journalists and correspondents on immigration and

interculturalism for the Mediterranean - Middle East region, experts on

questions of energy related to the oil market."

 

Samuels added that "Moffa's website is vaunted as 'The Middle East without

Taboos', but hardly addresses the subjects listed in his abovementioned

mission statement. Contributors, among them the Iranian and Syrian

Ambassadors to Italy, fixate obsessively on the State of Israel as the root

of the world's evils."

 

He continued, "Most discordant to University gravitas is his notice on the

website, 'Dracula Arrives at Teramo 18 May at 3.30 pm'", explaining that

"'Dracula' is convicted French Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson, renowned

for his abuse of the classroom to dismiss the gas chambers of Auschwitz as

a fabrication."

 

The Wiesenthal Centre and the Italian Institute for Historical

Studies-Olokaustos urged the Minister "to impress upon the Teramo

University administration their moral obligation to cancel Faurisson's

appearance on their campus. Moreover, those authorities should withdraw

their auspices from Moffa's programme which, in hijacking Middle East

Studies as a vehicle for hate, is a debasement of intellectual integrity."

 

The appeal emphasized that "to welcome Faurisson is an embarrassment to

Italian academia, offends the families of Italian martyrs who fell in

fighting the scourge of fascism, abuses the name of the resistance hero

Enrico Mattei, and encourages a perverse propaganda - ostensibly on the

pretext of freedom of expression - to incite a new generation to

antisemitism and racist doctrine."

 

"Madam Minister, you have often addressed this dark period of Europe's

past. To deny it is to repeat it. Italy's record of anti-Nazi resistance in

World War Two must not be desecrated", the letter concluded.

 

 

For further information, please contact Shimon Samuels at +33.609.77.01.58