BELMONT WITHDRAWS FROM ADL PROGRAM
By Alex I. Oster, Globe Correspondent
Boston Globe
September 18, 2007
United States
BELMONT – The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously yesterday to end
the town’s membership in the No Place for Hate program, sponsored by
the Anti-Defamation League.
Selectmen voted 2 to 1 against a clause in the resolution that
would make membership in the program conditional on the ADL’s clear
acknowledgment that the massacres of Armenian Turks were genocide and
upon its support of congressional legislation that would officially
acknowledge the genocide.
Dissenting members said it was not their place to influence national
politics. But Selectman Paul Solomon, who supported the second clause,
said Armenians "have lived in the shadow of this horrendous event,
and continual denial is a personal affront to them all."
Many Armenian groups view the ADL’s lack of support for the
congressional legislation as hypocritical, considering it is a civil
rights organization.
Watertown, Arlington, and Newton have also ended their involvement with
the program, while Needham’s Human Rights Commission is waiting to take
action, pending ADL response to the commission’s concerns. Bedford’s
Board of Selectmen decided yesterday to wait until November to decide
on membership. More than 50 towns and cities in Massachusetts remain
members of No Place for Hate.
Debate among the three male members of Belmont’s Board of Selectmen
did not run smoothly last night. After a selectman raised objections
to the second clause of the resolution, David Boyajian of Newton –
credited by many with starting the exodus with a letter published in
the Watertown TAB & Press – accused the selectmen "of being prejudiced
against Armenians and treating them as second-class citizens."
Board of Selectmen chairman Angelo R. Firenze tabled the matter after
the crowd became unruly, but a calming speech by a local resident
caused selectmen to revive the measure.