-
The assassinations, kidnaps and threats to life forcing academics and
doctors to leave Iraq do not follow any religious or sectarian pattern.
- The only dominant pattern is that the absolute majority of victims are ethnically Arabs.
The presentation affirms the following:
-
The defence of Iraqi academics and medical professionals should begin
by condemning the illegal war and occupation that created the situation
in Iraq where assassinations are endemic and go unpunished.
-
Occupying powers and their collaborators are responsible for the
protection of the lives of Iraqi civilians and imputable under
international law for the failure to do so.
-
The assassination of Iraqi academics and health professionals is part
of a conscious attempt to prevent Iraq from regaining its just
independent and sovereign status.
-
Defending Iraqi academics and health professionals is not separate from
the necessity of being in solidarity with the Iraqi people and their
national anti-occupation movement.
-
Iraqis, like all people, have a right to science and education and to
enjoy the inalienable rights of freedom of thought, expression,
research and innovation.
-
The right of families of assassinated health professionals and
academics to have the killing of their loved ones investigated by an
independent and competent body, and compensation paid, must be assured
in all cases.
Delegates
who attended the seminar reaffirmed their commitment to work with
determination to raise at all levels the issue of the criminal
destruction of Iraq’s professional and intellectual wealth.
In particular, delegations committed to:
- Demand that UNESCO act in defence of Iraq’s intellectuals and professionals.
-
Demand that the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
fulfill its duty to protect the lives and human rights of Iraqi doctors
and academics, and all Iraqi civilians.
-
Spread awareness of the issue of the assassination of Iraqi academics
and doctors with the appreciated commitment of Autonomous University.
-
Madrid to transmit the key concerns of this campaign to Spanish
universities, the International Federation of Universities and the
Association of Arab Universities of the Arab League.
-
Call upon the world’s media to understand that the killing of Iraqi
academics and health professionals is a result of the occupation, not
sectarian civil war.
-
Continue working to build an international solidarity campaign linking
Iraqi academics in exile and in Iraq with their peers in universities
worldwide.
-
Press national and regional parliaments to raise and discuss the
criminal destruction of Iraq’s intellectual and professional class.
-
The undersigned affirm that they will continue to cooperate in their
denunciation of the occupation and its numberless crimes and always
stand in solidarity with the people of Iraq.