The organization has decided to remove the annual carnival, which includes anti-Semitic display of Jewish figures from the World Cultural Heritage List • Event managers: It's ironic

• The Antisemitic Festival in Alsat, Belgium // Photo Archive

This weekend, the UNESCO unanimously decided to remove the annual Belgian city of Alsat from the list of World Cultural Heritage.

The organization's decision states that the carnival is responsible for fostering prejudice, mocking disadvantaged groups and damaging Holocaust memory, slavery and racial segregation. The decision was made only after criticizing the festival's anti-Semitic character, by addressing other racist phenomena.

Carnival executives and the mayor of Elst rejected the criticism that they had for their anti-Semitic portrayal of ultra-Orthodox Jewish figures. The executives and the mayor explained that in the carnival, ironically, they treat all population groups equally.

Belgian civic organizations launched a petition signing a petition calling on UNESCO to remove the carnival from the World Cultural Heritage List, following the local authorities' refusal to act against the phenomenon of anti-Semitism.

23,000 people signed the petition in no time. The Belgian government also resorted to procrastination on the issue, supporting the removal request only at the last moment before the UNESCO hearing, and only following heavy international political pressure exerted on it.