More Controversy On Eve Of Opening Ceremony
The Tokyo Games organizers have sacked one of the directors of the opening ceremony just a day before the event. They say Kobayashi Kentaro made anti-Semitic remarks as part of a comedy act in the 1990s.
It comes after an international Jewish human rights organization took aim at Kobayashi's comments, which were related to the Holocaust. The Simon Wiesenthal Center said nobody has the right to mock the victims of the Nazi genocide.
In the same statement, Rabbi Abraham Cooper said "Any association of this person to the Tokyo Olympics would insult the memory of six million Jews".
President of the organizing committee Hashimoto Seiko apologized for the latest scandal to hit the Games. Kobayashi was also helping to direct the closing ceremony.
The move follows the decision to cut music from the opening ceremony by a composer under fire for abusing classmates as a student.