Germnay: City awards US NGO with ties to Holocaust deniers €10,000 prize

Update from the Jerusalem Post:

The mayor of the German city of Bayreuth, Brigitte Merk-Erbe, said on Thursday that she rejects awarding the city’s tolerance prize to the radical US NGO Code Pink because of its ties with alleged deniers of the Holocaust.

“I consider it correct to refrain from awarding the prize out of a sense of [historical responsibility, and out of respect for the victims of National Socialism,“said Merk-Erbe.

Merk-Erbe recommended to the city council that the award and prize money be rescinded. The city council will address the row next week.  Read more.

The Jerusalem Post reports:

The announcement has sparked outrage from Jewish human rights organizations.
The Bavarian city of Bayreuth is slated to award 10,000 euros in April to a US-based activist group - Code Pink - that supports a boycott of the Jewish state and has participated in a conference in Iran with Holocaust deniers.

The decision by Bayreuth to award the Wilhelmine von Bayreuth-Preis has sparked outrage from Jewish human rights organizations. 

"It is hard to imagine that any due diligence was undertaken by the Wilhelmine von Bayreuth Award committee before it decided to bestow its highest honor to this group,"  Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Cooper provided three examples of Code Pink’s anti-Israel agitation. In the first example, the group's activists are seen in a video in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was equated with Adolf Hitler.  “Hitler, Yahoo, You Will See, Palestine Will Be free!" they chanted at a protest in front of an AIPAC conference in 2015.

"This genocidal chant alone should disqualify Code Pink from any 'tolerance award' in Germany," Cooper said.

In the YouTube video link provided by Cooper, Code Pink’s chanted in 2015: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Critics say this type of rhetoric seeks the dissolution of Israel.

"Then there is the matter of Code Pink‘s top leaders participating - in what in Germany would be a criminal enterprise - an anti-Semitic Holocaust Denial Conference convened by the serial human rights deniers in Tehran," he said.

Cooper added the third reason for disqualifying the group was the “desecration of Judaism‘s holiest site - Western Wall - by Code Pink to promote the anti-Semitic, extreme anti-peace, BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement."

Read more.