Between 2001 and 2007, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) expressed its unwillingness to attend the ceremony. The MCB instead called for a more inclusive day proposing the commemoration of deaths in Palestine, Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, along with the Holocaust. In a press release dated 26 January 2001 the Council listed two points of contention that prevented them from attending the event, which were that it "totally excludes and ignores the ongoing genocide and violation of Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, in Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere" and that "It includes the controversial question of alleged Armenian genocide as well as the so-called gay genocide." The MCB did not send official representatives to any of the official events associated with Holocaust Memorial Day.