Head of the Institute for the Research of Genocide Canada called out German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and criticized him for rewarding historian Gideon Greif, known for his denial of Srebrenica genocide.

Greif will receive the Order of Cross for Special Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in Israel this month, the German President's Office confirmed this weekend.

“Your move is deeply anti-civilisational, dehumanising, inhumane, threatening for the peace and stability in the world, and destructive for the international justice and law. Your move is degrading the United Nations and international law and justice authorities and documents,” said Institute head Emir Ramic, recalling that Greif was at the helm of a commission formed by Bosnia's Serb-majority region Republika Srpska, which investigated the sufferings of people in the eastern Srebrenica region during the 1992-95 period.

Rewarding a genocide denier is a crime and incites a new genocide, Ramic said, and asked for the decision to be withdrawn.

“We protest against this uncivilisational decision and demand that you unconditionally take it back. Because, this is the same as if a medal is given to someone who denies the Holocaust,” said the note addressed to the German President.

Despite the rulings of two international courts, the UN's tribunal for former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice ruled that the mass killings of Bosniak boys and men in the Srebrenica region was an act of genocide, the Republika Srpska commission established that what had happened was not genocide.

The commission's work was met with fierce criticism not only by genocide survivors, victims’ families and international institutions, but also by renowned representatives of the Jewish community.

Associate Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the World Jewish Congress, Menachem Z. Rosensaft called it an “embarrassment” and stressed that the report “single-mindedly rejects or ignores” findings of international tribunals that the 1995 massacre of some 8,000 Bosniak men and boys in the area of Srebrenica, as well as the “simultaneous forcible deportation from there of more than 25,000 Bosniak women, children, and elderly men” by Bosnian Serb forces constituted genocide.