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For
Immediate Release
http://www.iAbolish.com
Contact: Joyce Koo, 617-426-8161
Anti-Slavery Group Condemns Silence on UN Upgrade of Sudan
Former Slave: "UN Silence on Jihad-Slavery in Sudan
Outrageous"
Wednesday, April 30, 2003 (Boston) -- The American Anti-Slavery Group
applauds
the White House for denouncing Cuba's re-election to the United Nation
Human
Rights Commission, (UNHRC) but is deeply troubled over the silence in
Washington over the commission's vote to upgrade Sudan, a nation that
enslaves
Blacks.
Dr. Charles Jacobs, president of the American Anti-Slavery Group, says:
"It is
outrageous that UNHCR embraced Cuba a week after Havana denied it access
to
investigate the Castro regime's arrest of dissidents, but it is more
shocking
still that the world was silent when the UNHRC upgraded Sudan, a slaving
nation."
Two weeks ago, the Rights Commission voted to upgrade Sudan from a
"country
with special problems," to a status where special human rights
monitoring is no
longer required. "Because of that vote, the UN will no longer
monitor the slave
trade," Jacobs said. "The world body has closed its eyes to
human bondage."
Sudan has been condemned for genocide and for the enslavement of blacks
by the
US Congressional Black Caucus, by the entire Congress, and by President
Bush.
The American Anti-Slavery Group opposes the UN upgrade of Sudan, which
has done
nothing in the past year to warrant improvement of its status. UN
Special
Rapporteur Baum noted in a March 28, 2003 report that "human rights
abuses have
not decreased" and "the overall human rights situation has not
improved
significantly."
Francis Bok, an escaped slave from Sudan, says: "I was captured in
a slave raid
and held as a slave for 10 years. I am shocked that the UN would say
there is
no slavery in Sudan."
"We understand that the Bush Administration is focused on Iraq, but
the
Administration needs to speak up forcefully now against the UN's
whitewashing
of a slaving regime," says Jacobs. "America is a nation that
tore itself apart
over the issue of black slavery. Surely we cannot maintain silence
in the face
of an immoral farce where slavers are rewarded by the UN."
Khartoum has been conducting a self-declared "jihad" against
the country's
southern African Christian and animist population which has resulted in
the
death of two million people, the enslavement of tens of thousands, and
the
displacement of nearly 5 million people.
Libya, the chair of the UN Human Rights Commission, has been linked in
the
trafficking of Sudanese slaves into its borders. "It is no wonder
Cuba is
embraced: The human rights commission is now headed by slavers and
oppressors,"
observed Jacobs.
Founded in 1994, the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG) is America's
leading
human rights organization combating modern-day slavery worldwide. Based
in
Boston, the historic center of the American abolitionist movement, AASG
works
to extend the wave of emancipation to the 27 million people trapped in
slavery
today.
Charles Jacobs and Francis Bok are available for interviews.
Freedom Now News
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