prijava
SARAJEVO, December 10 (FENA) - Professor of philosophy and holocaust and genocide studies at the Southern Connecticut State University David Pettigrew reacted to today's awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to Peter Handke, saying that the Swedish Academy supports Handke's denial of genocide with this decision.
In a statement for FENA professor Pettigrew reminds that the decision to award Handke violates the Framework Decision of the Council of the European Union that Member States punish the denial of genocide and hate speech, and this award once again traumatize survivors of the genocide and at the same time encourages further denial and extremism.
"The decision to award Handke further reinforces xenophobia and Islamophobia, and is also the last stage of genocide, which is genocide denial," Pettigrew said.
Professor Pettigrew's position will be read as part of a program in Stockholm when all those opposed to awarding the genocide denier will gather. He also notes that this protest gives an opportunity to tell the world the truth about genocide, as well as the truth about the aggression that Serbia and Croatia committed in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995.
Awarding the Nobel Prize to Handke is the same as awarding someone who denies the Holocaust, Pettigrew points out, referring to the reaction of BiH Presidency Chairman Željko Komšić, who said that it is not possible to imagine a Holocaust denier being awarded the Nobel Prize for anything.
The truth about genocide in BiH is being called into question, and dramatic rise in nationalism, xenophobia and Islamophobia across Europe is contributing to this, and Pettigrew estimates that such extremism, which Handke has identified, has led to deadly terrorist attacks in the last ten years on Muslims and mosques in Norway and New Zealand.
The survivors of genocide in BiH, Pettigrew reports, have basic human rights that are violated with this decision.
"Recognizing these and other human rights and confirming the truth about genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Swedish Academy Award must be condemned and we must devote ourselves to confronting the genocide denial, glorification of convicted perpetrators and triumphalism from Republika Srpska to Stockholm," he said.
And finally, as he concluded, in remembrance of the victims of genocide, recognizing the human rights of the survivors and respecting the right to the truth and the rule of law would ensure that the denial of genocide is punished and a proper response to the Handke Nobel Prize would be a court case against him for denying genocide and hate speech.
Stockholm will host the 2019 Nobel Prize Ceremony today, but also a major protest rally in the Swedish capital for awarding Peter Handke, an Austrian writer who rejected the verdicts of The Hague Tribunal and denied crimes committed in the 1990s in Bosnia and Herzegovina, is announced.
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