Nicosia, Cyprus. Human rights commissioner Maria Stylianou Lottides said on Monday that a teacher at a private school, accused by parents of denying the Holocaust, was found not to have done so. The teacher’s name, the school’s name, and the content of the alleged denial were not disclosed.
Complaint and parents’ allegations
Lottides wrote in her report that, “among other things”, a “poster about the Holocaust was posted in a school hall” and that parents alleged it included “a derogatory or misleading message”.
According to the parents, the message “shifted the emphasis fro the murder of six million Jews in a way which was interpreted and perceived by the pupils as a downgrading of the event”.
Lottides said the complainants are Israeli nationals who also alleged the teacher had “made comments and actions which target their children”. The parents said those comments were “antisemitic and politically biased”, and that they “constitute … discrimination based on religion and national origin which constitutes a hostile and unsafe environment to the detriment of Israeli and Jewish students”.
The parents also alleged the teacher had insisted “on the identification of a pupil based on her religious identity as Jewish and not according to her nationality as Israeli”, and that the teacher had said that a visiting alumnus of the school “looks like a Jew”.
Findings and responses
Lottides wrote that the teacher “has not denied that he made some of the statements or actions attributed to her”, but said those statements “did not take place in the context attributed to them”.
She added that the teacher committed to showing increased attention to her public and pedagogical discourse “so as to limit the possibility of misinterpretations in the future”.
Lottides said the school “denies that any targeting of Jewish or Israeli students has been committed”, and that it says no “behaviour which constitutes discrimination based on religion and national origin” has taken place on its grounds.
Teacher’s employment record
Lottides said the teacher has worked at the same school as a history teacher for almost 10 years, “with positive performance and without the school having received any complaints of a similar nature”.
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