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By Aude Marcovitch
GENEVA: Libya is set to take
charge of a UN antiracism committee in a move condemned by human
rights groups who say the north African country’s rights record
disqualifies it from the post.
Libya takes over on the heels of
torture allegations put forward by foreign medics recently released
from the country who said they were forced into admitting they
infected hundreds of children with the AIDS virus.
The 20-nation United Nations
committee will be tasked with preparing a new international
conference against racism for 2009.
The new conference will evaluate
steps taken since the last conference on racism, xenophobia and
intolerance held in Durban, South Africa in 2001.
Initial meetings of the Libya-led
commission will occur between August 27 and 31 in Geneva, with two
other gatherings to be held later this year and in 2008.
Members chose Libya by consensus
to head the group in June. Armenia had sought the post but pulled
out at the last minute.
Antoine Madelin of the
International Federation of Human Rights Leagues said Libya’s
nomination was “not good news.”
“Libya is not known for its
respect for human rights, including respect for conventions against
racism,” Madelin said. “There is persecution of black minorities
who come to work in Libya…”
Global rights group Amnesty
International in its 2007 report accused Libya of ill treatment of
foreigners.
“Foreigners arrested on
suspicion of being irregular migrants reportedly often suffered
abuse in detention, such as beatings, and were collectively deported
without access to a lawyer or an assessment of their individual
cases,” it said.
The case of the foreign medics
detained in Libya sparked widespread criticism.
Held in Libya since 1999, the
five Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor with Bulgarian
citizenship were sentenced to death after being convicted of
deliberately infecting 438 Libyan children with the AIDS-causing HIV
virus.
The six were sentenced to death
in 2004 on the basis of confessions by the doctor and two of the
nurses who later retracted their statements, saying they had been
extracted under torture.
Last week Libya allowed them to
return to Bulgaria, where they had been due to serve life terms in
prison. Instead Bulgarian President Georgy Parvanov pardoned all
six.
The controversy surrounding
Libya’s designation as head of the committee may sound all too
familiar to some.
In 2003 Libya’s nomination as
head of the UN Human Rights Commission provoked ire from human
rights groups and bolstered arguments to scuttle the commission. It
has since been replaced by the Human Rights Council.
--AFP
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