Tuesday 21st April: The European Union of Jewish Students, together with Darfur groups organised a demonstration in Place des Nations to protest against the massacres in Darfur. 

Wednesday 22nd April: A big gathering took place again in Place des Nations with the theme "Israel wants Peace". 

The swiss government through its president Hans Rodolf Merz chose to honour iranian Ahmadinejad with a handshake and an official dinner the evening of his arrival before his shocking speech at the UN Durban review conference.

Furthermore, during Ahmadinejad's speech, the swiss ambassador to the UN chose to stay in the room instead of leaving the assemblee as did the european representatives present.

The very same evening, Laurent Moutinot, member of the Geneva government, was invited to speak at the Holocaust Rememberance ceremony, where he declared that Geneva would continue to invite belligerants and victims in order to allow a platform for them to discuss.

These events show that the swiss notion of neutrality behind which the swiss authorities hide is in fact a means to justify inacceptable behaviour, such as welcoming and thus condoning a notorious antisemite and Holocaust denier. 

NR

Holocaust Remembrance Day - "Yom Hashoah"

Par le hasard des calendriers, le premier jour de la Conférence de Durban 2 coïncidait avec le jour de souvenir de l'Holocaust "Yom Hashoah". Les communautés religieuses juives ont décidé de commémorer ce jour du souvenir sur la Place des nations, face à l'ONU, montrant ainsi aux leaders du monde entier présents à la Conférence contre le racisme que le plus grand acte raciste en terme de tragédie humaine a été la Shoah.

Au cours de la commémoration, des personnalités comme Elie Wiesel, Irmin Cotler, Père Debois et BHL se sont exprimés, trouvant les mots justes là où il n'y a eu qu'injustice.

Je souhaite ici évoquer mon incompréhension totale face au discours de Laurent Moutinot, Conseiller d'Etat genevois qui a déclaré que Genève continuerait toujours  d'accueillir les "belligérants et les victimes pour leur permettre de discuter". 

A l'occasion du jour de souvenir de l'Holocaust, affirmer vouloir toujours accueillir les belligérants et les victimes était d'une insensibilité choquante. Probablement que M. Moutinot tentait de se justifier d'avoir accueilli Mahmoud Ahmadinejad à son arrivée à Genève la veille.

M. Moutinot, vous avez très mal choisi vos mots...

NR

Mon 20.04.09: Iranian President speech at Geneva /DurbanII Conference Against Racism

 

Enough with the monkey business!

One day at Durban II, and the conference supposed to fight racism is already an international failure. Thank you Mister Ahmaninedjad!  Well… you came, you saw, and... you made a fool of yourself Mister President.

 

Let us remind what steps Iran took towards Peace and tolerance:

Supplying weapons and money to shiia international terror organization Hezbollah: DONE

Supplying weapons and money to sunni Palestinian terror organization Hamas: DONE

Deploying strategic Iranian secret service operations in Latin America with the help of your friend Hugo Chavez: DONE

Trying to acquire nuclear military capability: DONE

Trying to store and develop nuclear vectors in Syria with North Korea technology: DONE

Hanging homosexuals: DONE

Murdering adultery women : DONE

Call for the annihilation of a member State of the United Nations, Israel : DONE

Anti-Semitic views and negation of the Holocaust: DONE

Discriminating, imprisoning and killing members of the Baha'i community: DONE

Public media censorship: DONE

 

 

When you go to the circus Mr Ahmaninedjad, you should expect to be taken for a clown!

S.R.

 

Scandal at the UN as Ahmadinejad enters:

After queuing up for 45 minutes to regain the UN conference room after the lunch break, we were refused access as there were too many NGOs trying to get in....obviously (and ironically may we add), everyone was waiting for Iranian president Ahmadinejad who was due to speak at 15h15. While waiting to get in the room, we noticed that the majority of people were either from Jewish organisations or Iranians!

We were redirected to room 17 where there was to be a live retransmission on big screen of the conference for NGO members that were not allowed acccess into the UN conference room.

We watch on the screen as Ahmadinejad arrives under a round of applause.

He starts his speech in Farsi, most people put the earphones to their ears to get the translation, and there....shock and scandal! There is no translation supplied to room 17! Nothing! People in the room start yelling for the translation to come on, scandalised that they are denied the possibility of understandinmg the gibberish that the iranian president is about to pronounce!

All of a sudden....on the screen retransmitting what is happening in the conference room, a commotion occurs. A young man, wearing a clown's multicoloured wig has got up right in the front of Ahmadinejad. He calls the iranian president a racist. The security comes to take him away. The majority of room 17 stands up, cheers and applauds! Some brave guy is trying to show the world what a comedy this whole process is.

Ahmadinejad continues his speech: we are sitting nearby a woman who speaks farsi, and who is willing to translate, but all of a sudden, another outburst is occuring in room 17. A group of Afro-Americans are making a scandal and saying that we (who are "we"? the anti-iranians???) are jeopardizing the conference. A big argument follows, making a lot of noise and drowning out the sound of Ahmadinejad, thus unenabling our "translator" to hear what he is saying. The arguement of the Afro-americans is that the jews put all the focus on Israel on purpose in order to get more media coverage! How surrealistic is that? One of the reasons that the US and some of the european countries refused the original text was because they didn't accept the focus on one particular country (namely Israel) as the countries of the Islamic conference wanted!

Anyhow, finally on the big screen, we see the european delegations leaving the room following Ahmadinejad's declaration that the Jews use the Holocaust to their own use.

Big round of applause in room 17 as people cheer and yell "Vive l'Europe! Vive l'Europe!"

The europeans have decided to show their indignation at the Ahmadinejad's inacceptable speech and their refusal to endorse it.

Ahmadinejad continues his declarations, attacking both the "Zionists", the US and accusing the capitalists of controlling the world. he goes on to say that we are now experiencing the decline of the Western power.

Ahmadinejad finishes his speech under another round of applause.

The President of the Durban review conference after Ahmadinejad’s speech asked participants to behave and listen to others who « have different views ». He went on to say « if you do not like the speaker, simply walk out of the room ».

The next speaker was M. Jonas Gahr Stoere, Norwegian Minister of foreign affaires who had the difficult task of responding to the inflammatory speech that had just occured. He said that Ahmadinejad threatens the focus of this conference. Speaking about the text that aims at protecting people against incitement to hate, he said that it had brought broad concessus and that Iran was placing itself outside of this concessus.  He said « I heard his speech and I heard incitement of hate .... Ahmadinejad with his declarations has made Iran the odd one out, and Norway will not accept that the odd one out hijacks the efforts of the many".

The Norwegian foreign minister then spoke about Norway's red lines for the text, namely that human rights protects individuals not religions, that Norway will not compromise on freedom of expression, the necessity of free media, the fact that the text was of universal reach and should not pinpoint one particular conflict over another, and finally the importance of refusing all kinds of revisionnism.

Mr. Gahr Stoere said that Norway is ready to accept the text as it stands and that he regrets that some states decided at the last minute to withdraw. 

He ended his speech saying that although he strongly disagreed with the first speaker: " we cannot surrender the floor of the UN to extremism". 

This speech reflects the different approaches of the European countries towards extremism.

While we can understand the US position and that of the other countries who decided to boycott the Durban 2 conference, while we can applaud the european countries who chose to show their disagreement by leaving the room at the words of Ahmadinejad's hatred, we can also recognise that leaving means allowing the very regimes that violate the most strongly human rights to control the message of the UN conference against racism. 

What's a better choice? We'll leave that question open to debate...

NR

20 avril 2009: UN Durban Review Conference

Since this morning, I have been attending the Durban Review Conference. It is now 11h30 and for the moment, there have been various speeches (from Mr. Ban Ki Moon, Secretary General to the UN, Mr. Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi, president of the HR Council, etc.) all of which have been banalities on the importance of combatting racism. 

During her speech, Ms Navanathem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, amonst yet more bla bla bla,  thanked the palestinian delegation as well as the Organisation of Islamic conference for the flexibility they have shown on their positions. She was obviously refering to the difference between the final text compared with the initial version. She went on to say that she is convinced that the draft is balanced yet meaningful. She continued that although not everone has chosen to attend the conference, (boycott so far of US, Israel, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Canada, Australia, New Zealand) she’s sure it will be a success and that hopes all countries will join efforts in fight against racism. She said that we have here a historical occasion and that all eyes were on us.

The election of the president of the Durban Review Conference then took place. Mr. Amos Wako, from Kenya was elected.

NR

19 April 2009: Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy

Today, 19 April 2009,  Act For Democracy participated in the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy, taking place just a day before the opening of the Durban Review Conference. Amongst the panel of high level speakers were a number of dissidents from countries such as Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Egypt, denouncing human rights violations in their respective countries.

The first session called "Racism, Genocide, and Crimes Against Humanity: Assessing the Genocide Convention After 60 Years" Genocide Convention held speakers such as Irwin Cotler, Counsel for genocide victims and dissidents, Canadian MP, Ester Murawajo, Tutsi survivor, founder of AVEGA, and Dominique Sopo, President of SOS Racisme in France.

Ester Murawajo gave a particularly compelling testimony about survivors of the Rwanda genocide and urged the international community to act to help these survivors who have been left to themselves since 15 years and who have to live with the guilt of having survived a genocide in which most of their friends and families perished, left in total affective, economic and social poverty.

In the upcoming UN Conference against racism, how is it possible that the core issues of today - namely the tragic Darfour genocide that is being perpetrated under the international community's eyes - is not at the centre of the UN conference as it should be?

The ironic fact is that the so-called Durban review conference, that is supposed to be a conference adressing issues such as racism, is organised and instrumentalised by the racists themselves, namely the autocratic and theocratic regimes such as Lybia and Iran.

What a joke! How can we not laugh (instead of cry) at this gigantic scam?

NR

This afternoon, at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights, Tolerance and Democracy, the participants not only shared their frustration and struggle with us, but above all raised awareness about the constant human rights' violations in countries such as Lybia, Iran,Sudan, Venezuela, some of which are part of the Human rights conventions of Geneva!

For instance, we heard the emotional testimony of Dr. Ashraf El Hagog, the palestinian doctor in Lybia,  who reminded us, how, besides an unfair trial, he and the Bulgarian nurses were tortured in the Libyan prison to obtain explicit confessions. Lybia is part of the Geneva convention. Therefore, the doctor and the nurses have an enforceable right to obtain fair compensation and reparation for having been tortured and wrongfully imprisoned and for discrimination.He also told us how grateful he was that the first person who helped him was a Jew, the ex Bulgaria's Foreign Minister Solomon Passy.

Parvez Sharma, producer of the Documentary "Jihad For Love", told us how homosexuality is condemned by Islamists; how homosexuals are sent to prison without any fair trial; how in Bagdad, human life has ceased to have any importance; how offenses are growing against children.

Mohamed Sifaoui, anti-racism activist, journalist and writer, told us how the Muslim religion is being instrumentalized to serve an ideology and/ or political aim but certainly not to defend its people's rights and free will. He insisted on the Right to criticize.How it belongs to all to denounce any form of hatred against the other because of his differences (real or allegedly); Democracy and its values shall be for all (North, South, Asia, Africa, Middle East....). Any ideological propaganda has to be fought as manipulation under the Islamic law will conduct ineluctably to barbarism.

Tomorrow, Durban II will begin. After today's testimonies, no one can pretend they don't know what to expect in terms of  human rights' violation and who are the real violators of these...The violators such as Lybia or Iran won't be able to hide behind a scapegoat such as Israel as they did the first time.
Now, it is time to engage and speak up for Human Rights, it is time to protect our future and  follow the path of extraordinary people such as Winston Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rene Cassin, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel...

IMA