By KUNA,
Geneva : The Algerian ambassador to the UN iin Geneva Idriss Jazairy said that seven years after the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action there still remains racism when it concerns the Arabs and Islam. He added in his speech to the Durban Review Conference that when the situation concerns Jews such talk is not accepted. Syrian representative Abdulmonem Annan told the conference that some parties exercise the policy of “scourging the earth, destroying homes, killing civilians and that if we give a blind eye to such acts of serious violations of human rights then we would be stripping the conference of its substantial content.” He added such crimes are perpetuated in the name of democracy and the victims in the Middle East have become numbers and if we shy from addressing those crimes we would be giving a free hand to those perpetrators to continue their massacres.
The controversy over a Canadian NGO’s accreditation to the conference will be picked up Monday. The participation of the NGO is question which is a Canadian NGO supporting Israel, was objected to by the Islamic and Arab countries and accepted by the European Union (EU). The discussions exhausted Monday more than four hours of the first day of the conference.
In 1997, the General Assembly decided, in resolution 52/111, to hold the World Conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. The World Conference held in Durban, South Africa from 31 August to 7 September 2001, was landmark in the struggle to eradicate all forms of racism.
The first took place in Geneva from 27 to 31 August 2007. During this session, governments took a number of organizational decisions, including the provisional rules of procedure of the Durban Review Conference, sources of funding for the Conference, accreditation of NGOs, objectives of the Conference, the organization of regional preparatory meetings, and others.t