Navigation

Switzerland to attend UN racism summit

Switzerland announced on Saturday it would participate in the United Nations anti-racism conference beginning on Monday in Geneva.

This content was published on April 18, 2009 - 15:20

Officials said the composition of the delegation would be announced later on, leaving open the question of whether or not Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey would attend the opening of the Durban Review Conference.

The meeting is a follow-up to the controversial World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.

Switzerland, like the European Union and its member states, had made participation for the Geneva meeting conditional on a draft version of the final document.

The United States, Canada, Italy and Israel will not attend.

The Russian-backed compromised final document has eliminated references to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and does not equate criticism of religion to racism.

Host city Geneva is the UN's European seat and home to the organisation's Human Rights Council. So far, 103 countries have said they will attend the four-day conference.

In compliance with the JTI standards

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

Sort by

Change your password

Do you really want to delete your profile?

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.

Discover our weekly must-reads for free!

Sign up to get our top stories straight into your mailbox.

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.