Dear Sir,

Jonathan Freedland mentions (The Guardian, 25th Jan 2006) that last Sunday on Radio 4 I stated that the Muslim Council of Britain was upholding a 'religious principle' by staying away from the Holocaust Memorial Day, but inexplicably Mr Freedland did not think it necessary to inform your readers about what this principle actually was.

So, once again, for the record, the MCB fully accepts and recognises the monstrous horror and cruelty that underpinned the Nazi holocaust. The reason the MCB has insisted in calling for a more inclusive Genocide Memorial Day is because across the globe - and not just among Muslims - there is a widespread view that we in the West devalue the lives of non-Westerners.

In recent years we have seen genocide perpetrated once again, this time in Rwanda where one million people were killed within the space of a few weeks in 1994 and Chechnya where 10% of its population has been killed by the Russians. To this day, the leading powers insist on turning a blind eye to President Putin's murderous assault on the tiny republic.

We need to do more than just reflect on the past. We must be able to recognise when similar abuses occur in our own time. In Iraq, meanwhile, we have a situation where the US and UK governments refuse even to discuss how many Iraqis may have died since their ill-begotten 2003 invasion.

All human lives - from whatever ethnic background - ought to be equally valued. In our opinion, a Genocide Memorial Day - which would of course, incorporate remembrance of the Nazi holocaust - would better fulfil this much-needed function.

Yours faithfully,

Mr Inayat Bunglawala,
Secretary,
Media Secretary,