Director of Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony dismissed over Holocaust joke

Kentaro Kobayashi was dismissed from his role as director of the team creating the opening and closing ceremonies of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics for making a Holocaust joke, the organizing committee said on Thursday.

The decision came after a video surfaced of Kobayashi, a former comedian, making jokes in the past about the Holocaust as per the Kyodo News.

Earlier on Monday, International Olympic Committee (IOC) accepted Japanese musician Keigo Oyamada's resignation from the creative team for the opening ceremony of Tokyo 2020.

"The Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee believes that Mr. Oyamada's actions were absolutely unacceptable. In light of his sincere apology, we expressed a willingness to allow Mr. Oyamada to continue his work on preparations in the short time remaining before the Opening Ceremony," IOC said in a statement.

Oyamada's resignation follows days of controversy over his confessions in magazines published in the 1990s in which he boasted about bullying people in his childhood. Oyamada was in charge of composing some of the music for the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

Better known by his stage name Cornelius, Oyamada gave those unpopular two interviews to Japanese music magazines in 1994 and 1995, in which he described inflicting horrific abuse on fellow students at school.

( With inputs from ANI )