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Last month the UN General Assembly heard a statement on the universal human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. It affirmed the principle that all human beings are entitled to equal dignity and respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

Yesterday, a ceremony was held at UN headquarters in New York to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, and the UN General Assembly President Miguel d’Escoto had words of hope for all of us:

“We need to move beyond our statements of grief and memory, however powerfully felt, and work to develop new ways of thinking about the Holocaust, about genocide, about the apparently bottomless capacity for peoples’ cruelty to each other.

“Let us go beyond remembrance and work together for more victories over racism, ethnic and religious intolerance and anti-Semitism. This work begins with us – in our families, our communities, at the national and the global levels.

“Let us remember and learn about the crimes of the past in order to prevent them today and in the future.

“At their core, all genocides, all holocausts, start with the alienation, demonisation and the marginalisation of the ‘Other’ – those citizens of another religion, another race, ethnicity, another set of political ideas, or another sexual orientation than our own.”

Under the Nazis an estimated 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality. Between 5,000 and 15,000 were interned in concentration camps. It is not known how many survived. [via Pink News]

Last month, 66 nations signed the statement on the universal human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people. All 27 EU member states signed. South Africa and the United States of America did not.