UNGA adopts resolution to reject Holocaust denial

UNited Nations, Jan 21 (IANS) The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution to reject and condemn any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event.

The draft resolution, submitted by Israel and Germany, won the approval of the General Assembly without a vote, reports Xinhua news agency.

The resolution “rejects and condemns without any reservation any denial of the Holocaust as a historical event, either in full or in part”, and urges all UN member states to do so as well.

The resolution commends those member states that have actively engaged in preserving those sites that served as Nazi death camps, concentration camps, forced labour camps, killing sites and prisons during the Holocaust, as well as similar places operated by Nazi-allied regimes, their accomplices or auxiliaries.

It urges member states to develop educational programs that will inculcate future generations with the lessons of the Holocaust in order to help prevent future acts of genocide.

It also urges member states and social media companies to take active measures to combat anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial or distortion by means of information and communications technologies and to facilitate reporting of such content.

The resolution requests the UN Outreach Programme on the Holocaust as well as all relevant UN specialized agencies to continue to develop and implement programs aimed at countering Holocaust denial and distortion, and to advance measures to mobilise civil society, and invites all relevant stakeholders to educate their societies truthfully about the facts of the Holocaust and the importance of its lessons as a countermeasure against Holocaust denial and distortion, in order to prevent future acts of genocide.

–IANS

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