Lori
02-10-2007, 04:13 PM
I'm really, really saddened by this.
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel accosted at peace forum in San Francisco
By Paul Elias
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO – A man who approached Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust scholar Eli Wiesel seeking an interview at a San Francisco hotel last week later roughed him up, police said.
Police are investigating the incident in which they say a man, who may have been a Holocaust denier, approached Wiesel in an elevator at a peace forum at the Argent Hotel Feb. 1 and requested an interview.
When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, police Sgt. Neville Gittens said.
The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream, and Wiesel went to the lobby and called police.
Gittens said investigators were aware of a posting at an anti-Semitic Web site in which a man claimed responsibility for the attack, but declined to comment further.
The Web site is registered in Australia. Australian police said they had not received a request from U.S. officials seeking help in the investigation.
Wiesel couldn't be immediately reached for comment at Boston University, where he teaches, or through his institute in New York.
Wiesel, who survived the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, has worked for human rights in many parts of the world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070210-0314-wieselaccosted.html
Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel accosted at peace forum in San Francisco
By Paul Elias
ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO – A man who approached Nobel Peace laureate and Holocaust scholar Eli Wiesel seeking an interview at a San Francisco hotel last week later roughed him up, police said.
Police are investigating the incident in which they say a man, who may have been a Holocaust denier, approached Wiesel in an elevator at a peace forum at the Argent Hotel Feb. 1 and requested an interview.
When Wiesel consented to talk in the hotel's lobby, the man insisted it be done in a hotel room and dragged the 78-year-old off the elevator on the sixth floor, police Sgt. Neville Gittens said.
The assailant fled after Wiesel began to scream, and Wiesel went to the lobby and called police.
Gittens said investigators were aware of a posting at an anti-Semitic Web site in which a man claimed responsibility for the attack, but declined to comment further.
The Web site is registered in Australia. Australian police said they had not received a request from U.S. officials seeking help in the investigation.
Wiesel couldn't be immediately reached for comment at Boston University, where he teaches, or through his institute in New York.
Wiesel, who survived the Nazi death camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during World War II, has worked for human rights in many parts of the world and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070210-0314-wieselaccosted.html