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<div class="submitted"> <span class="credit"></span><big><b>Four of
five speakers pull out of UNESCO conference honoring Israel’s Peres at
University of Connecticut</b></big><br>
<br>
<span property="dc:date dc:created" content="2012-10-23T16:55:06+00:00"
datatype="xsd:dateTime" rel="sioc:has_creator">Submitted by <span
class="username" xml:lang="" about="/users/ali-abunimah"
typeof="sioc:UserAccount" property="foaf:name">Ali Abunimah</span> on
Tue, 10/23/2012 - 16:55<br>
<br>
<small><small><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/four-five-speakers-pull-out-unesco-conference-honoring-israels-peres-university">http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/four-five-speakers-pull-out-unesco-conference-honoring-israels-peres-university</a></small></small><br>
</span> </div>
<div class="field-body">
<p>A “human rights” conference at the University of Connecticut was in
disarray after almost all the speakers pulled out. The <a
href="http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-uconn-peres-protest-1023-20121023,0,2891588.story"><em>Hartford
Courant</em></a> reports today:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Four of the five speakers scheduled to address a conference on
human rights scheduled for [today] Tuesday at the University of
Connecticut canceled Monday, with one of those speakers saying she
would not come because the event was honoring Israeli President Shimon
Peres.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The Electronic Intifada was the first to report on Sunday that
Bahrain rights defender Maryam Al-Khawaja <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/bahrain-rights-defender-maryam-al-khawaja-pulls-out-unesco-ceremony-over-honor">had
withdrawn from the UNESCO-sponsored conference</a> that was due to
honor her father, political prisoner <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/abdulhadi-al-khawaja">Abdulhadi
Al-Khawaja</a>, because the same event is honoring <a
href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/shimon-peres">Peres</a>.</p>
<p>“Whilst I am honored that you chose my father, I am also utterly
disappointed that you would honor him alongside a person who has been
responsible for many human rights violations and should be put on
trial, not honored,” Al-Khawaja wrote in an open letter.</p>
<p>The <a
href="http://www.courant.com/news/education/hc-uconn-peres-protest-1023-20121023,0,2891588.story"><em>Hartford
Courant</em></a> adds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It was not immediately clear why the other speakers canceled, but
Stephanie Reitz, spokesman for the university said “It’s disappointing.
I’m sure they all had a lot of interesting things to share.”</p>
<p>But she said the event would go forward Tuesday with some
modification. She said the only speaker scheduled is Peres’ son-in-law
and personal physician, Raphael Walden, a vascular surgeon who was
chief of surgery at Sheba and has been a visiting professor at
Masschusetts General Hospital in Boston.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The other speakers at the 13th Annual UNESCO Chair & Institute
of Comparative Human Rights Conference at the University of Connecticut
on 23 October, titled “<a
href="http://www.unescochair.uconn.edu/upchrconference10.htm">Legacies
Of Human Rights Leadership And Struggles</a>” were due to be grassroots
civil rights activist Yuri Kochiyama, Samia Nkrumah, daughter of Ghana
independence leader Kwame Nkrumah, and Shehrbano Taseer, daughter of
Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab province who was
assassinated in January 2011.</p>
<p>Last night, opponents of the honor to Peres held an alternative
event titled “What Legacy of Human Rights Leadership? The Truth About
Shimon Peres and Israel/Palestine,” featuring Lenni Brenner, Stanley
Heller, and J. Kēhaulani Kauanui.</p>
<p>Stanley Heller, executive director of the Middle East Crisis
Committee, told the <em>Courant</em>, “The UNESCO conference is a
great idea to honor people who have fought for human rights, but they
are making a huge mistake with Shimon Peres.”</p>
<p>Kauanui, a Wesleyan University professor who serves on the <a
href="http://www.usacbi.org/advisory-board/">Advisory Board</a> of the
<a href="http://electronicintifada.net/tags/usacbi">US Campaign for the
Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel</a> (USACBI) said in an email
to the <em>Courant</em>, “Peres and the State of Israel are
responsible for the violent domination of the Palestinian people
through colonialism, occupation, and apartheid. These three prongs of
brutal oppression are not only illegal, each is the very antithesis of
human rights, democracy and freedom.”</p>
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