Thursday, April 23, 2009
Ashraf al-Hadjudj (R) with His Parents (Sofia Photo)
The United Nations Durban II conference on racism in Geneva last week attracted media coverage surrounding both the issue of the United States and other western nations boycotting the summit because of its anti-Israeli bias, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech, in which he did in fact condemn Israel as a racist state. However, there was another confrontation that was ignored. The chairwoman of the conference, Libyan ambassador Najjat al-Hajjaji, was herself publicly accused of representing a racist, xenophobic and violent government.
The accusation came from Ashraf al-Hadjudj, a Palestinian medical intern who was arrested in 1999 along with five Bulgarian nurses for allegedly spreading an HIV epidemic in a Libyan children’s hospital. The six were twice sentenced to death and spent eight years in prison before being released in 2007 following mediation between the European Union and the Libyan government.
At the Durban II conference, when al-Hadjudj identified himself as a victim of torture by the Libyan government, Chairwoman Najjat al-Hajjaji immediately attempted to silence him with her gavel. She argued that al-Hadudj’s imprisonment and torture did not fall under the intended agenda and objectives of the conference. Al-Hadjudj responded by pointing out that the conference’s charter states that its main objectives are to address racism, xenophobia and intolerance, and to propose reforms regarding countries that discriminate against and scapegoat foreigners. Again, al-Hajjaji silenced the speaker with her gavel and informed him that he was not allowed to refer to his arrest and torture.
Although Ashraf al-Hadjudj was silenced before he could finish, his presence at the conference highlighted a hypocrisy that exists in Durban II: the fact that it professes to confront racism on an institutional scale, while allowing the highly repressive government of Libya to chair the conference.
-Tyler Schenk-Wasson
Durban II Dispatch: Libya on Trial (by Zvika Krieger, New Republic)
Confrontation at Durban II (UN Watch)
HIV Trial in Libya (Wikipedia)
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