Bosniak Council: UCG to cancel lecture by Israeli historian who denied genocide in Srebrenica

The Bosniak Council in Montenegro has asked the University of Montenegro and Rector Vladimir Božović to cancel the announced lecture by Prof. Dr. Gideon Greif, an Israeli historian specializing in the Holocaust, scheduled for tomorrow at 12:00 at the Historical Institute of Montenegro, because he openly denied the genocide in Srebrenica.

"Without disputing the importance of marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the messages that day should carry, the Bosniak Council believes that the oldest scientific research institution in Montenegro and the University of Montenegro cannot host a person who openly denied the genocide in Srebrenica, relativized and minimized the scope of the crime," the press release states.

The Bosniak Council recalled that Greif led a commission of the Republika Srpska government which, they say, contrary to the verdicts and established facts before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, stated that genocide did not occur in Srebrenica.

The statement emphasizes that the report of the commission and Greif's activities were also condemned by influential members of the World Jewish Congress, describing it as "manipulation of the truth", and that the German government withdrew its proposal to award Greif the German Order of Merit precisely for his denial of genocide.

"We remind the Montenegrin public and the leadership of the University of Montenegro that the Montenegrin Parliament adopted two resolutions on the Srebrenica Genocide in 2009 and 2021, which, among other things, confirmed Montenegro's determination to condemn in the strongest terms any attempt to deny this crime, and therefore once again call on Rector Božović and the University leadership to cancel the announced lecture by genocide deniers in Srebrenica. The culture of remembrance does not imply hosting genocide deniers at the University, but rather the memorialization of the genocide as an obligation that Montenegro has undertaken together with all those who adopted the Genocide Resolution at the United Nations," the statement concludes.