Calling it a "despicable crime," the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today strongly condemned the desecration of hundreds of Muslim graves in a cemetery in France.
Vandals painted swastikas and anti-Islam slogans on more than 500 graves of French Muslim war veterans at the Notre-Dame-de-Lorette military cemetery in Northern France. Some nearby Jewish tombstones were also desecrated.
"We extend our sympathy to the Muslim community of France on this serious hate crime that insults the dead and threatens the living," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "We empathize with the hurt and revulsion that this attack engenders, as Jewish cemeteries around the world have often been the targets of hate-filled vandals. It is our hope that the police will identify those responsible for this despicable crime."
In a letter to the President of the French Council for the Muslim Faith (CFCM), ADL pledged its support to the CFCM's joint effort with the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France (CRIF) to combat hatred and bigotry targeting the Muslim, Jewish and other minority communities in France.