February 13, 2013 - Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) sent a letter to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova urging her to take concrete action to stop Israel's continued destruction of the ancient Mamilla Muslim cemetery in Jerusalem. The letter comes two years after CCR and the Campaign to Preserve Mamilla Jerusalem Cemetery submitted complaints to several UN officials about the human rights violations committed in the disinterment of hundreds of human remains from the cemetery to make way for a "Museum of Tolerance" built by the L.A.-based Simon Wiesenthal Center. UNESCO and other UN bodies have failed to take any measurable steps to stop what even an Israeli archaeologist that headed the excavation of the cemetery called an "archaeological crime." Construction on the cemetery site was recently renewed, and structures are quickly being erected where layers of human remains were dug up, and possibly still lay.
