No Holocaust Day

last updated 8 January 2015

London

Advisors to Prime Minister Tony Blair have recommended abolishing Holocaust Day because it is offensive to Muslims. Since 2001, Britain has observed an annual day commemorating the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis during World War II. But members of a Blair-appointed task force on Islamic extremism argued this week that the day should be replaced with a generic Genocide Day that honors victims of all massacres. “Muslims feel hurt and excluded that their lives are not equally valuable to those lives lost in the Holocaust time,” Sir Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, told the London Daily Telegraph. A Home Office spokesman said the government would consider the proposal, but stressed that Britain regards the Holocaust as a “defining tragedy in European history.”