From UN Watch, Geneva, 26 August 2013:
Sept.
11 Canberra conference to feature top 9/11 conspiracy theorist
UN
Watch urges British Academy to pull support for Richard Falk's
Australia event
The British Academy is supporting a
lecturer who has been strongly condemned for racism by British Prime
Minister David Cameron and by the Foreign Office's anti-discrimination
division, reported UN Watch.
The
Geneva-based non-governmental human rights group today urged the head of the
British Academy, Lord Stern of Brentford, to immediately remove all
support for the scheduled September 11 Canberra appearance by Richard
Falk, a UN Human Rights Council official recently denounced by world leaders
for suggesting
that the Boston bombings were the fault of the U.S. and Israel.
Falk was condemned
by UN chief Ban Ki-moon, and by the US, UK and Canadian governments, for
blaming the Boston terrorist attack on “the American global domination project”
and “Tel Aviv.”
The Sept.
11 timing of the conference is doubly offensive because Falk was also condemned
by the UN chief for spreading 9/11 conspiracy theories.
A copy of
UN Watch's letter was sent to Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, the UK's envoy
to the UN, and to the London anti-discrimination division, both of whom
recently condemned Falk for racism.
UN Watch
today also sent a similar protest letter to Gareth Evans, chancellor of the
Australian National University, which is hosting the conference. Evans, a
former Australian foreign minister, served on a 2004 UN panel that led to the
creation of Falk's Human Rights Council.
______
Following
is the UN Watch letter sent today.
Lord
Stern of Brentford
President of the British Academy
10-11 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AH
United Kingdom
August 26, 2013
Dear Lord
Stern,
UN Watch is shocked that the British Academy, whose purpose is to
support excellence in the humanities, is funding a September 11th platform for
Mr. Richard Falk, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who was just condemned
by your own government for racism, and who was denounced by the
Secretary-General of the United Nations and world leaders for his vile
comments blaming the Boston terrorist attack on “the American global domination project” and “Tel Aviv.”
According
to a website called Human
Rights in Palestine, the Australian National University in Canberra will
soon host a "groundbreaking conference" on Palestinian human rights,
on September 11. Mr. Falk is listed as a keynote speaker at this event.
This
highly problematic event prominently displays a large British Academy logo
throughout the website.
Notwithstanding
a barely legible footnote on one of the pages containing a disclaimer written
in tiny, faded grey letters, the website clearly implies the
endorsement and support of the British Academy on its "Home",
"Program", "Speakers", "Exhibition" and other
pages.
In that
regard, please note that while the conference program claims to address human
rights, Mr. Falk is like a wolf in sheep’s clothing who uses the language of
human rights to absolve terrorists of culpability. He is the only UN expert in
history to have been condemned for racism by Britain, or any other member state
of the European Union.
We are
sending a copy of this complaint letter to the attention of UK Ambassador to
the UN Mark Lyall Grant -- and to Ms. Philippa Thompson, Deputy Team Leader of
the Equality and Non-Discrimination Team within the Human Rights &
Democracy Department of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who recently
examined and addressed Mr. Falk's racism.
The UK
Non-Discrimination Team determined
that Falk's recent writings are “resonant of the
longstanding antisemitic practice of blaming Jews (through the State of Israel
by proxy) for all that is wrong in the world.”
As the
British Academy, you may also wish to take note that:
1. British Prime Minister David Cameron
“strongly
condemned” Falk's 2011 publication of an antisemitic cartoon, showing a
dog wearing a Jewish
head-covering urinating on a depiction of justice and devouring a bloody
skeleton. Falk was also condemned by British
MPs David Burrowes and Theresa
Villiers.
2. The British
Foreign Office last year condemned Falk for providing the cover endorsement of
a book that asks whether "Hitler
might have been right after all." The UK Mission in
Geneva protested to the UN human rights office, expressing London's “serious
concerns.” The book endorsed by Falk, “The Wandering
Who,” also accuses "the
Jews" of being "the
only people who managed to maintain and sustain a racially orientated,
expansionist and genocidal national identity that is not at all different from
Nazi ethnic ideology."
3. The British
Mission to the United Nations condemned Mr. Falk’s April 19,
2013 remarks on the Boston bombing as “anti-Semitic,” highlighting it was the
third time the British Government had to do so.
In
addition we note:
• That Falk is so
extreme in his support for the Hamas terrorist organization that even the Palestinian Authority—as revealed in
a Wikleaks cable,
and which Falk himself admits—has sought to remove him, on grounds that he is a
"partisan of Hamas";
• That Falk
recently published an article attempting to downplay, reinterpret
and justify the latest call by Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal to destroy Israel;
• That
Falk accused Israel of
planning a "Palestinian Holocaust,"prompting
a bloc of dictatorships, including Bashar al-Assad's Syria and Muammar
Gaddafi's Libya, to sucessfully nominate him as the UN Human Rights Council's
expert on Palestine;
• That Falk is one of the world's most
high-profile supporters of the leading 9/11 conspiracy theorists,
lending his name to those who accuse the U.S. government of orchestrating the
destruction of the Twin Towers as a pretext to launch wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan;
• That
Falk actively promotes the writings of David Ray Griffin, a disciple and close
friend of Falk who has produced 12 books describing
the World Trade Center attack as "an inside job";
• That
Falk not only contributed the Foreword to Griffin's 2004 "The New Pearl Harbor"—praising the
author's "patience," "fortitude," "courage," and
"intelligence"—but Griffin credits Falk for getting the book
published, and also specially
thanks Falk's wife, Hilal Elver, someone who remains a member of
Human Rights Watch's Santa Barbara Committee, and who is also speaking at the upcoming
Canberra conference;
• That
Falk has repeatedly appeared on the "TruthJihad.com"
show of Kevin Barrett, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and Holocaust
skeptic who rails against the "ethnic Jews" who he says run
Washington and the media, a show on which Falk has endorsed Barrett's
"good work" while also praising Iranian tyrant Mahmoud Ahmadinejad;
• That in 2011 UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon took the floor of the Human Rights Council to issue an unprecedented
condemnation of Falk's 9/11 remarks, saying they were "preposterous"
and "an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in
that tragic terrorist attack";
• That U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice in 2011
denounced Falk's comments as
"despicable and deeply offensive," and condemned Falk's "one-sided and politicized approach," saying
his words were "so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he
should no longer continue in his position," and that "the
cause of human rights will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the
distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create";
• That
in reaction to Falk's April 19, 2013 justification of the Boston Marathon
terrorist attacks UN chief Ban Ki-moon's spokesman said: “The Secretary-General rejects Mr.
Falk’s comments" which “undermine the credibility and the work of the
United Nations”;
• That
U.S. Ambassador
Susan Rice stated that “Someone
who spews such vitriol has no place at the UN.” The U.S.
Mission to the United Nations condemned Falk’s “provocative and offensive”
remarks, and the “absurdity” of his service as a UN human rights expert;
• That
Canadian
Foreign Minister John Baird slammed Falk’s “mean-spirited, anti-Semitic
rhetoric” and called for him to be kicked out of the UN, saying
“The United Nations should be ashamed to even be associated with such an
individual”; and
• That
U.S. Senator
Robert Menendez, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and numerous
members of the U.S. Congress condemned Falk's remarks.
We
urge you to act swiftly to remove the good name of the British Academy from any
association with Mr. Falk, and to deny such a promoter of hatred and racism
this undeserved honor and legitimacy. The cause of human rights requires no
less.
Thank you for your urgent attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
UN Watch
cc:
UK Ambassador to the UN Mark Lyall Grant
Ms. Philippa Thompson, Deputy Team Leader,
Equality and Non-Discrimination Team, Human Rights
& Democracy Department, UK Foreign and
Commonwealth Office
