Racism Conference Adopts Resolution
GENEVA — The United Nations anti-racism meeting in Geneva adopted a resolution that participants applauded as an improved basis for action against racism and xenophobia.
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The adoption of the resolution by the committee that coordinates the conference ended months of negotiation in which contentious clauses were removed referring to Israel and Palestine and attempting to make defamation of religion an offence against human rights.
The conference will formally adopt the document on Friday but it is now no longer open to debate or amendment, diplomats said.
“This is very good news indeed,” said Navi Pillay, the United Nations human rights commissioner. “It’s the culmination of months of deliberation.”
The announcement sidelined the furor over the speech by the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday attacking Israel as a racist state. The speech prompted the Czech Republic, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, to walk out of the conference and left United Nations officials and diplomats fearful the fall-out from that speech might derail the proceedings.
“What we have decided shows the outcome when you remain engaged in the process,” said Amos Wako of Kenya, the conference president. “It shows that boycotts do not assist.”
The United States and more than a half-dozen other nations boycotted the conference out of concerns that it would become a platform for attacks on Israel.
Mr. Ahmadinejad tried to do just that on Monday, but some Western delegates said they were satisfied that Iran had found no support for its attempt to eliminate references to the Holocaust from the resolution in pre-conference negotiations and had not turned conference proceedings to focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Israel faced further denunciations from Arab speakers, including the Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki, for “racist” policies toward Palestinians and the occupied territories. But those charges were “within acceptable boundaries,” a European diplomat said, contrasting them with Mr. Ahmadinejad’s speech, which the diplomat called “incitement.”
The conference statement showed the process was “evolving in a positive direction,” said Peter Gooderham, Britain’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva.
Ms. Pillay, the human rights commissioner, said the program of action adopted by the first conference on racism in 2001 had suffered setbacks from challenges ranging from increased and complex migration to terrorism and some of the measures countries have used to counter it.
She said the new document contains valuable additional elements that “reinvigorates the political commitment” to implementing the 2001 plan. It highlighted the increased suffering of many different groups from racism and related intolerance, she said.
It also “unequivocally reaffirms the positive role of freedom of expression in the fight against racism,” she said.
Nick Cumming-Bruce reported from Geneva, and Neil MacFarquhar from New York.
