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Western boycott threatens UN anti-racism meeting
2009-04-19
GENEVA (AFP) - A UN conference on racism was undermined by a growing boycott by Western nations on Sunday amid concern that it will serve as a bully pulpit against Israel, which slammed the meeting as a "tragic farce". The outlook for the conference, which starts Monday in Geneva, was also thrown into doubt by the prospect of an opening day speech by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has stirred outrage by repeatedly calling the Holocaust a "myth". Australia and the Netherlands joined the United States, Canada and Israel in deciding to stay away from the five-day Durban Review Conference. The meeting is meant to take stock of progress in fighting racial discrimination, xenophobia and intolerance since the controversial World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, eight years ago. "Regrettably, we cannot be confident that the review conference will not again be used as a platform to air offensive views, including anti-Semitic views," Australian foreign minister Stephen Smith said in a statement. Major European Union nations were still discussing their attendance in Geneva, a spokesman for Germany's Foreign Ministry said, as Berlin came under pressure to stay away. The Simon Wiesenthal Centre, an international Jewish human rights group, called on Germany to pull out, saying it "carries on its back a huge responsibility." Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen broke ranks with the EU on Sunday, announcing that the Netherlands would not attend because it feared the event would be abused "for political ends and attacks on the West." Britain, however, still intended to send a low level delegation although it was "watching how things develop", a Foreign Office spokesman said. Calling the UN meeting a "tragic farce," Israeli foreign ministry spokeman Yossi Levy said: "Officially it is aimed at denouncing racism, but it has invited a Holocaust denier who has called for the destruction of Israel." Monday is also Holocaust commemoration day, which will be marked by ceremony in Geneva attended by leading Jewish figures including Nobel peace laureate Elie Wiesel, and the anniversary of Hitler's birthday. On Friday, negotiators, including Western and Muslim states, had agreed on a draft declaration that they believed had ironed out the most controversial issues relating to religious discrimination and the Middle East. But those efforts after months of controversy proved insufficient, leading to an even bigger walkout than the one by the United States and Israel in Durban in 2001. US State Department spokesman Robert Wood said that while significant progress had been made, the latest text still reaffirmed unacceptable parts of the 2001 declaration referring to the Mideast conflict and infringed on freedom of speech. US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch slammed the boycott as unacceptable, as other issues of racial discrimination and xenophobia were overshadowed by the spat. "These countries are turning their backs on the victims of racism and are gravely endangering the UN's work against racism," HRW spokeswoman Juliette de Rivero told AFP. Other human rights groups challenged Ahmadinejad to eliminate severe discrimination against religious and ethnic minorities, women, and halt incitement to hatred in Iran. "By coming to the Durban Review Conference, President Ahmadinejad signals a commitment to the conference's goals of eliminating all forms of discrimination and intolerance," said Diane Ala'i, the BIC's representative at the UN in Geneva. "His first move on returning home, then, should be to address the severe discrimination and persecution that have flourished under his tenure," she said in a joint statement with the International Federation of Human Rights and the Iranian League for Human Rights. Pope Benedict XVI called the conference an "important initiative" and urged "firm and concrete international action... against all forms of discrimination and intolerance."
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