September 3rd, 2008 by NGO Monitor Staff | Category: Durban Review Conference

On August 24-26, 2008, the African Regional Preparatory Meeting was held in Abuja, Nigeria. Its stated aim was to review the implementation of the final declaration of the 2001 World Conference against Racism. NGOs were offered grants of up to $2000 to attend this conference. The Geneva-based UN Watch was among the NGOs in attendance, calling on participants to “oppose the campaign by certain governments and lobby groups to distort the language of human rights for a narrow and extreme political agenda, which only distracts from and harms the African cause.” Its plenary address was interrupted when human rights violations in Sudan and Libya were mentioned. According to UN Watch, “Millions of African victims of xenophobia - present and future - are ill-served by the conference’s grant of impunity for racial or ethnic crimes committed in African countries,” and “its inflammatory provisions now threaten to derail the world conference in April.”

Instead of focusing on local abuses of human rights, such as the genocide in Darfur and the ongoing war in Congo, as well as the persecution of minorities in South Africa, the participants chose to single Israel out in their “concern about the plight of the Palestinian people under foreign occupations,” the only nation mentioned specifically. The preliminary document also establishes a hierarchy among the religions, placing Islam on top, in its discussion of religious hatred.  Furthermore, the document calls for the qualification of the universal human right of freedom of expression, if it impedes upon religious sensitivities.