ARBUTHNOT, Felicity. Eminent UK journalist on inauguration of the first 12 May Iraq Genocide Memorial Day

Felicity Arbuthnot is a UK freelance journalist specialising in Iraq and was senior researcher on two award-winning documentaries on the country, John Pilger's Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq and Denis Halliday's Returns (see: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1099/op3.htm ).

Felicity Arbuthnot on Iraq Genocide Memorial Day (2011): “On the 16th anniversary of Albright stating her endorsement of half a million dead Iraqi children as being "worth it" to continue the UN sanctions against Iraq, the silent holocaust of Iraq's children is now to be annually commemorated.

In New Haven in the US on 12 May, the day Albright's infamous comments were made 16 years ago, a banner was unfurled and a minute's silence held as the Middle East Crisis Committee, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Tree of Life Education Fund and We Refuse to be Enemies inaugurated the first Iraq Genocide Memorial Day.

Stanley Heller, chair of the Middle East Crisis Committee commented that "this horrific loss of life was ignored for six years until the US ambassador to the UN appeared on [the TV show] '60 Minutes' and admitted the deaths of half a million children. We in the Middle East Crisis Committee call for 12 May to be marked as Iraq Genocide Memorial Day." [1].

[1]. Felicity Arbuthnot, “Madeleine Albright and the Iraqi Genocide”, Al-Ahram Weekly, 24-20 May 2012: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1099/op3.htm .