United Nations flag: Another rejection
Photo: Oliver Berg / picture alliance / dpa
Germany is not participating in the controversial anti-racism conference of the United Nations.
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The federal government has decided not to take part in this year's event on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the so-called Durban Conference,
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said the Foreign Office on Saturday.
The
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Welt am Sonntag
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had previously
reported.
The so-called Durban IV conference - 20 years after the first such meeting in 2001 in Durban, South Africa - is to take place on September 22nd.
In addition to Germany, several other countries, including the USA, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and Austria, have already canceled their participation and justified this with concerns about a renewed vilification of Israel.
At the anti-racism conference in 2001, which was already controversial at the time, the Palestinians and Syrians vehemently attacked Israel as a supposedly racist state that violated the human rights of the Palestinians.
Their cause was supported by a simultaneous conference of non-governmental organizations that mobilized thousands of sympathizers.
The Israeli and US delegations left Durban in protest.
Germany has already boycotted the two previous follow-up meetings, in Geneva in 2009 and in New York in 2011.
The Federal Government justified this at the time by saying that it could not be ruled out that the conference would be misused for anti-Semitic statements, as was the case at previous conferences.
In 2011 there was another scandal, the then Iranian President used the UN summit to incite Israel.
juh / dpa / afp