IHEU and two other NGOs have issued a press release at the UN in Geneva, demanding that the Iranian President be prosecuted under the Genocide Convention, following his call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. Aussi disponible en franà§ais 
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GENEVA, 27 January 2006 — The call by the Iranian President for the destruction of the State of Israel in defiance of article 2:4 of the United Nations Charter demands a firm reaction from the international community. On this, the first International Day of Commemoration of Holocaust Victims, we call upon states to invoke the Genocide Convention and bring the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran to trial before the International Criminal Court.
Three months ago, the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejed called for Israel to be “wiped off the map.” He predicted that: “very soon the stain of this disgrace will be purged from the centre of the Islamic world.” He also warned all the peacemakers: “Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation’s fury.” In a December speech to the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Mecca, President Ahmadinejed again insisted that the major problem in the Islamic world was “the presence of the Zionist occupation in the heart of the Islamic region”, and its “judicious removal will pave the way to the appearance of Islam’s power in the successful management of global matters.”
On 14 December 2005, in a televised speech, the Iranian president called the Nazi genocide of 6 million Jews a fabrication: “They have created a myth in the name of the Holocaust and consider it above God, religion, and the prophets…” On 5 January, Iran’s state controlled television screened a discussion on “the myth of the gas chambers” and “the truth of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” [1]
We urge the international community to heed these words, and to note in particular the parallels between the ideological reference in the President’s Teheran speech to “the struggle between the Islamic world and the front of the infidels” and Hitler’s Mein Kampf (‘My Struggle’), with the ‘true Aryans’ pitted against the non-Aryans. Is the history of the 20th century’s bloodiest episode to be repeated in the 21st?
The Iranian leader’s “direct and public incitement” for the destruction of a Member State of the United Nations – in total defiance of article 2:4 of the 1945 UN Charter – requires a firm reaction from the international community. Article 3 of the Genocide Convention defines what acts shall be punishable as defined under article 4. Among them is: “Direct and public incitement to commit genocide.” States should be encouraged on the occasion of this first International Day of Commemoration of Holocaust Victims to invoke article 8 of the Convention on Genocide, and for President Ahmadinejed’s genocide call to be punished by the International Criminal Court.
René Wadlow, Main Representative
David G. Littman, Representative
The Association for World Education to the United Nations Office in Geneva
Roy W. Brown
President of the International Humanist and Ethical Union and Main Representative in Geneva
[1] MEMRI (‘Iran TV Discussion on the Myth of the Gas Chambers and the Truth of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,’ 18 January 2006).