Maliki’s use of the army against the civilian population of Anbar constitutes the defeat of the policies Iraq has been following since 2003 and cements the divorce between the people of Iraq and the current sectarian government.

This new round of bombing has already produced 300,000 displaced, adding to the tragedy of the millions of Iraqi citizens already displaced by the failed and brutal US occupation.

While states are legally obliged to refrain from assisting other states to undertake internationally criminal acts, the United States is upping its supply of arms and military advisors to Iraq, along with intelligence cooperation. A new US “Surge” is in the making and will only bring more death and destruction.

Maliki’s government cannot wantonly kill civilians and claim a “State of Law”:
— Collective punishment is illegal under international law.
— Shelling water and electricity facilities, religious buildings, and hospitals are war crimes and crimes against humanity.
— The scale and target of the Maliki military strikes and shelling is utterly disproportionate and illegal and criminal in the face of the legitimate demands of the Anbar tribes.
— The lack of proportionality itself constitutes a war crime and crime against humanity.
— It is paramount for people everywhere to mobilise now to save Fallujah’s and Anbar’s civilians, understanding that their suffering mirrors the impact of the fascist sectarian regime that the US occupation created.

We appeal to all individuals of conscience, to all those who support human rights, to all progressives who believe in democracy and the right to self-determination, to the UN Security Council, to the president of the UN General Assembly, to members of the UN General Assembly, to the European Commission and member states, to the European Parliament and peoples, to Islamic and Arab states and people and their organisations, and to all human rights, anti-war and civil society organisations to:

1. Order the Iraqi government to stop its use of wanton shelling, air force attacks, and heavy artillery against the civilian population in keeping with the responsibility of states to protect civilians under the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention and its additional protocols.
2. Constitute an independent investigative committee to document the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Anbar and submit its findings to the International Criminal Court.

The machine of repression and death in Iraq continues unabated. The Presidential Council of Iraq has reportedly ratified the death sentences of some 900 detainees who languish on death row. Some 17 of them are confirmed to be women.None of the condemned had a fair trial. The Iraqi judicial system has been deemed corrupt, fundamentally dysfunctional and plagued with sectarianism by responsible international agencies and all major human rights organisations. Hundreds of lawyers have been assassinated since 2003. The Association of Iraqi Lawyers has publicly declared that it cannot reach the detainees.In a bid to eliminate its political opponents, further terrorise the Iraqi people, ostensibly into submission, and to be casted the “tough leader” the US pretends it is currently seeking for Iraq, Nouri Al-Maliki has pledged to carry out these executions ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled in March of 2010.

Iraq already has one of the highest rates of executions in the world. On a single day in June, 19 people were hanged in Baghdad. Without global action, 900 people will be hanged imminently.

A culture of terror and detention

Terror through mass detention, torture and abuse is one of the trademarks of the US occupation and Maliki. In addition to mass killing, mass forced displacement, the contamination of Iraqi soil, the destruction of all public infrastructure and means of survival, tens of thousands of Iraqis are arbitrarily detained in both official and ghost facilities all over Iraq.

Exact figures of the number, age and gender of detainees are withheld by authorities. Those who want investigations on abuse are either threatened or killed. In June 2009, Harith Al-Obaidi, an MP and critic of human rights abuses, announced in parliament his plan to investigate allegations of corruption, torture and abuse in Iraqi prisons. He was assassinated the following day.

Depending on the source, the number of detainees varies from 44,014 to some 400,000. Tens of thousands of families don’t know the fate of a loved one arbitrarily arrested. Even the number of detention facilities is unknown. The ICRC, responsible for monitoring prisoners in time of conflict, has repeatedly complained of being denied access to all “field operation detention facilities” and secret prisons. Amnesty International, the International Federation of Human Rights and even the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq, mandated by the Security Council to provide human rights reporting, are denied access to official detention centres by US Command.

The Red Cross has reported that intelligence officers of the US occupation themselves estimate that 70-90 per cent of Iraqi detainees are arrested “by mistake”. The majority is taken in sweeping and arbitrary mass arrest campaigns. They are held incommunicado, without charges, without visits from families or access to lawyers, for indefinite periods. The few who are formally accused are charged on the basis of confessions made under torture or the testimonies of dubious informants of the occupation. No tangible evidence is ever provided.

Since 2003, an estimated 2,400 children have been detained by the US, some as young as 10 years old. After denying it for years, the occupation has now acknowledged that a large but unspecified number of women are being held. Many were kidnapped to blackmail their husbands, accused of “terrorism,” into surrendering. They often have their infants and children in prison with them. Several women inmates interviewed by UN researchers reported being raped and sexually abused while held in custody. The US bears primary and final responsibility for these conditions.

Democracy in the new Iraq: repression

Everyday news outlets report more arrests and new killings by persons wearing official uniforms. The Maliki government praises itself for the recent waves of detention. Since its appointment, all it has succeeded in achieving is more repression of his opponents while the crimes against innocent people had never been investigated and punished.

Under occupation, Iraq has become the second most corrupted country in the world, the trade of prisoners one of the government militias’ most lucrative businesses. The police kidnap, hold prisoners in ghost prisons, sell them and blackmail their families for ransom with impunity.

Year after year, alarming reports have been published by leading human rights organisations, inside and outside Iraq, pointing to random arrests, unlawful detentions, summary executions, abuses, rape and torture of prisoners in Iraq, both at the hands of occupation forces and their local armed gangs.

Under false accusations and deceitful propaganda, the absence of law or a functioning judicial system, and with the support of the US for its puppet government, humanity and the rights of the human being are insulted every day in Iraq. Millions of Iraqis are suffering.

An occupation that tries to impose its plans and interests by force and destruction on a people whose rights, interests and identity is to resist it can only result in the perpetuation of genocide — the intended destruction of Iraq and the Iraqi people as a state and nation.

Call for global action

• We call on all to work to stop these executions and impose a moratorium on the death penalty in Iraq.

• We demand the release of all political prisoners, held in custody in official prisons and ghost facilities by the US, the US installed Iraqi government and the militias, brought to Iraq by the US occupation.

• Every Iraqi deserves protection and justice. Unfair trials in Iraq must be stopped.

• We call on the UN Human Rights Council to appoint a Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in Iraq.

• We call on all organisations that defend the first human right — the right to life — to take up with urgency the cause of the 900 prisoners on death row in Iraq.

• We call on all lawyers associations to protest the absence of law and due process in Iraq, and to declare the imminent execution of these 900 prisoners unlawful.

• 900 prisoners killed in Iraq would be 900 insults to the common conscience of humanity.

• We call on all to do everything within their means to bring the cases of these 900 prisoners facing death to the public eye, and to demand action by relevant authorities.

• The US occupation of Iraq must end. It is that occupation that is the ultimate rope around the neck of Iraq, and the ultimate prison for the Iraqi people.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee
http://brusselstribunal.org

After almost two weeks of impotence, during which an estimated 790 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed, including 230 children, a further 1080 children among the 3300 injured, the UN Security Council passed — with US abstention — a weak and indeterminate resolution that has failed to force the State of Israel to halt its criminal onslaught on the occupied people of Gaza, encircled and unable to avoid being massacred.

Today, the security cabinet of the Israeli government, proving again its contempt for its obligations as a member state of the UN, rejected this resolution in no uncertain terms, saying that the State of Israel has never agreed that “any outside body” would determine its military policy, deeming the resolution “not practical” — this a resolution that was even biased towards it, failing to mention Hamas, the elected government in Palestine. In other words, the slaughter will continue whether the Security Council demands that it end or not.

Israeli impunity, UNSC complicity

This outcome is proof that Israel acts with systematic impunity. It is also proof, as recognized by President of the UN General Assembly Miguel d’Escoto-Brockmann, that the Security Council is “dysfunctional”, excusing by omission massive and grave human rights abuses when perpetrated by one of its permanent members or their allies.

In doing so, and in the face of overwhelming evidence — much televised — of Israel war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, amounting to substantive evidence of the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people, the Security Council has effectively shown that it cannot — or is not willing to — maintain international peace and security and satisfy the Palestinian people’s national right to live peacefully, free on its land.

Uniting for peace resolution

The world need not endure this horror. A mechanism exists that can take the protection of international peace and security, and the Palestinian people, out of the hands of the Security Council and give it to the world community as a whole, represented by the General Assembly.¹ General Assembly President d’Escoto-Brockmann supports this mechanism and Malaysia already fulfilled the procedural obligation that one UN member state proposes it.

Hours before the Security Council voted on a resolution made so weak and bereft of mechanisms of enforcement that Israel could dismiss it, a General Assembly emergency session was due to be held. There is evidence that this prospect alone forced the Security Council to act, largely to block invocation of Resolution 377. Given the result, and given Israel’s rejection of Security Council authority, it is urgent that this session convenes and imposes upon Israel an immediate ceasefire, according to the overwhelming will of the international community and people everywhere, or face international ostracism.

Israel fears Resolution 377

According to UN General Assembly Resolution 377, emergency special sessions of the General Assembly are warranted to act when the Security Council “fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.”² The government of Israel itself has ensured the failure of the Security Council to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security.

That Israel’s violations of international humanitarian and human rights law in Gaza are so flagrant, and that Israel rejects the authority of the Security Council prime facie, suggests as the only route possible — a last resort for the Palestinian people in Gaza — the convening of an emergency session of the General Assembly where no veto could be invoked, to impose on Israel an immediate ceasefire backed by credible collective measures.

Urgent call for action

As stated by the Palestinian human rights community in their 30 December call to invoke Resolution 377³: “The civilian population of the occupied Gaza Strip will inevitably continue to suffer heavy losses without the external intervention of the international community.”

In renewing the call to invoke Resolution 377, we support Special Rapporteur Richard Falk’s demand on “all Member States, as well as officials and every relevant organ of the United Nations system, to move on an emergency basis not only to condemn Israel’s serious violations, but to develop new approaches to providing real protection for the Palestinian people.”

Only the General Assembly can impose, where the Security Council fails, an immediate ceasefire on Israel.

We call upon human rights groups, lawyers and legal organizations, trade unions, intellectuals, the anti-war movement and all people of conscience to support President d’Escoto-Brockmann, demand that an emergency session of the General Assembly be convened under authority of Resolution 377, and to participate in the growing international boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel.

We call upon the UN human rights system to authorize an effective investigation of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity, including its wilful killings, use of internationally prohibited weapons, destruction of civilian infrastructure, targeting of schools, higher education institutions, mosques and civilian shelters, and even international humanitarian aid workers. The UN Human Rights Council has an obligation to investigate these elements of genocide and in doing so contribute to ending it.

As a signal to Israel, we call upon all states to cut diplomatic relations with Israel forthwith and for the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Conventions to hold an immediate conference to re-establish respect for international humanitarian law. On the basis of its past and present impunity, Israel should be expelled from the United Nations.

All should demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire, the immediate withdrawal of all belligerent Israeli military forces, and the end of the blockade. Upon realization, collective measures should be taken at all levels to end Israel’s occupation of Palestine and to oblige Israeli society to respect the equality of human rights. Until the occupation of Palestine ends, we underline the legal and guaranteed right of the Palestinian people to resist Israeli aggression by all means.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee
http://brusselstribunal.org

In one magnificent act, Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, an Iraqi journalist with Al-Baghdadiya television, epitomized the truth of the defeat of the United States in Iraq and lifted the spirit of resistance within the hearts of all Arabs, matching that of the Iraqi people who continue to resist imperialism and colonialism and who refuse humiliation.

It is Bush who is humiliated, and from it he cannot recover. He had snuck into Iraq, unannounced, to sign an illegal treaty with his puppet stooge aimed at institutionalizing the US occupation. Two flying shoes destroyed the façade upon which he and his cronies claim victory in Iraq.

For the orphans and widows

The greatest expression of contempt in Arab culture is wielding a shoe to an adversary. Bush and his criminal cronies deserve contempt. Bush claims not to know what Al-Zaidi’s “cause” is. Al-Zaidi made it clear: the shoes he threw at Bush were for the orphans and widows of Bush’s imperial war that to date has killed more than 1.2 million Iraqis and displaced six million more.

The shoes were thrown equally in the direction of Bush’s local puppets — proof that no government under occupation can be legitimate or gain legitimacy, that resistance expresses the sovereignty of the Iraqi people, exposing the Bush-Maliki agreement as worthless and devoid of legality. Two flying shoes expressed the paradise that is resistance in comparison to the ignominy of submission. Iraq is unbreakable, its people proven proud and invincible.

Al-Zaidi needs protection

Following five and a half years of relentless destruction and killing, it is clear that Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, in daring to challenge the imperial United States, took a step into that grey zone between the human right to life and the permanent threat of death wielded by imperialism.

Given the Maliki government’s eagerness in summarily executing its political opponents — including their lawyers — and as he is reportedly in the direct custody of Maliki’s own security guards, we have firm reason to believe that Al-Zaidi is in immediate danger of being tortured and/or assassinated.

We remind all that Muntadhar Al-Zaidi is a protected person under international humanitarian law, which governs the US occupation, and has guaranteed rights under international human rights law.¹ International humanitarian and human rights law outlaws torture and summary execution, incommunicado detention, the ill treatment of detainees, or denial of access to legal counsel. The US occupation is directly responsible for Al-Zaidi’s welfare and must guarantee his security. As a journalist, he must be afforded extra protection.

Appeal for action

Following Al-Zaidi’s action, thousands have taken to the street in his support and countless statements are being written in his defence. We salute his courage, demand to know his exact location, and join millions in demanding his immediate release.

We join all patriotic Arabs and the Iraqi people who today celebrate their dignity, visually announced and reaffirmed in the public humiliation of a disgraced American president.

We call upon all human rights organizations and bodies, including responsible organs of the United Nations, along with journalists’ syndicates and associations, to defend the right to security and life of Muntadhar Al-Zaidi and work to ensure his immediate release.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee
http://brusselstribunal.org

The BRussells Tribunal condemns the State of Israel for its barbaric killing of 56 Lebanese civilians, including many children, in Qana. 750 Lebanese have been killed since Israel began its military campaign three weeks ago.

Israel’s offensive on the sovereign state of Lebanon is a clear act of aggression under international law and is a supreme crime against peace. The indiscriminate mass killing of civilians also constitutes collective punishment, another imputable crime under international law.

The United States stands accused alongside Israel. It has rushed massive arms deliveries to Israel. Again, it has proven its partiality in the UN Security Council, vetoing all moves towards an immediate ceasefire.

The United States and Israel are acting as one. The illegal pre-emptive war on Iraq was prelude and made possible Israel’s campaign of aggression on Lebanon. No solution to this crisis can be forthcoming unless the United States is isolated and equally condemned by the international community.

Force cannot justify what law denies. Israel’s continued war crimes, which are a staple of its foreign policy and occupation of Palestine, constitute the gravest threat to international peace in decades.

The BRussells Tribunal opposes all rhetoric of a “greater” or “New Middle East” and condemns the use of this phrase to sanction continued killing in Lebanon and Gaza.

Action is possible now

It is time for the international community to fulfil its duty and prevent Israel being the exception to the rule of international norms and peaceful aspirations.

Under UN General Assembly resolution 377 of 1950 — the “Uniting for Peace” resolution — the General Assembly is empowered to act where the UN Security Council has failed. The UN General Assembly can and must, as an urgent measure and as a moral imperative, convene an immediate emergency session, condemn the State of Israel, and its partner in crime and arms supplier, the United States.

Israel must cease all military operations immediately and unconditionally.

The international community must also stand against US-Israeli plans for the post-aggression interjection of an international force in Lebanon. Any “stabilising” force should be stationed on the Israeli side of the Blue Line. Israel is the aggressor state and must be restrained. It is the sovereignty of Lebanon that must be guaranteed.

The Lebanese have the sovereign right to decide how to organise the defence of their territory and they stand in agreement on how to resist. Their right to resist is guaranteed by the UN Charter and customary international law.

The UN General Assembly should act to implement all UN resolutions regarding Palestine, Israel and Lebanon — including resolutions 194, 242 and 425 — and demand the immediate withdrawal of Israel from all occupied territories, along with just compensation for all human and material losses.

The BRussells Tribunal calls upon all organisations, institutions, parliaments, governments and individuals to ACT NOW and call for an extraordinary session of the UN General Assembly to condemn Israel’s aggression on Lebanon and its continuous war crimes. Inaction or silence is complicity.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee
http://brusselstribunal.org

Public demonstrations are essential, but even more is demanded of us. The system has to be disrupted completely if there is to be any chance of minimizing the casualties of Israel’s coming ground invasion and re-occupation of South Lebanon.

We call on all workers, all management, all professions, all unions and syndicates, and all Arabs to begin immediately a general strike.

We appeal especially to dockers, oil workers and airport workers. Anyone who has a position in the supply chain for Israel should act on their conscience.

This action is needed now. We believe the invasion will begin this week.

General strike, now!

Over 250 Lebanese civilians dead within a week, all murdered by the State of Israel. If the elected leaders of the states we, the people, compose do nothing about this, international society is nothing but illusion — camouflage and safety valve for unbridled aggression.

Israel cannot wantonly kill civilians and claim “self-defense”

Collective punishment is illegal under international law

The scale and target of Israeli military strikes is utterly disproportionate to the legal resistance operation Israelclaims provoked them.

This lack of proportionality itself constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity

Condoleezza Rice suggesting “conducive conditions” must appear before any ceasefire be negotiated is tantamount to aiding and abetting war crimes and is imputable under international criminal law

It is paramount for people everywhere to mobilize now to save Lebanese civilians, understanding that their suffering mirrors the impact of US-Israeli colonial imperialism in Palestine, Iraq and elsewhere

Tel Aviv and Washington: Executioner and apologist

Following the intended destruction of the Iraqi state and society by the United States and its allies, (condemned by the BRussells Tribunal), and the catalogue of atrocities of recent years, no one can maintain that the United States and Israel — international tyrant and regional proxy — have anything but the most contemptuous plans for the Arab world and its people. Not only do we have stomach a barrage of lies and endless attempts by Bush and his oil company paymasters to enact their own version of the domino theory across the Middle East, last week witnessed what could be an audacious bid to begin the endgame: one that likely will lead to a major, multi-state regional war which surely would include, sooner or later, the use of nuclear weapons.

From Iraq to Palestine and across all the crooked pro-Washington Arab regimes, the US alliance with Israel — which now has reached insane proportions of mutual devotion — has brought nothing but torture, violence and mass destruction to the Arab world. The opening years of the second millennium have crystallized all the injustice of the last century. And in this conspiracy, corporate mainstream media plays a willing, opportunist role.

Now we are obliged to sit back, relax and watch Lebanese citizens be exterminated in an orgy of Israeli violence. We refuse. We are cajoled to believe that Israel is the victim and the only fair-playing actor in the Middle East. We do not believe.

The right to resist

The resistance operation that was the alleged trigger for Israel’s latest foray of war crimes was legitimate under international law. Despite Israel’s withdrawal from much of South Lebanon in 2000, it has continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms area, contrary to UN determinations, kept thousands of prisoners, as well as routinely violate Lebanese sovereignty with flyovers by Israeli warplanes.

For over a quarter of a century, customary international law has explicitly sanctioned the use of “all means” necessary to achieving effective self-determination for peoples under colonial rule or occupation. There are hundred of thousands of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon since 1948 whom Israel refuses the right to return to their homes, as stated in resolution 194 of the General Assembly of the UN. The nature of Israel’s colonial designs on Lebanonis well established. So long as Israel occupies Lebanese land, Hizbullah — or any other popular force — has a right under international law to repel and resist that occupation. Nothing in international law prohibits the taking of prisoners of war, which Israel’s captured soldiers are.

Regardless of whether Israel likes it or not that its colonial plans are resisted by those it would subjugate, nothing — certainly not morality — allows it to displace its fury upon a civilian population. This is what it is doing. It is not even targeting Hizbullah.

Colonialism and the fight for justice

In reality, Israel’s bombing of Lebanon has nothing to do with two soldiers. Bush and advisors are saying now that Hizbullah should be addressed militarily: that a ceasefire “won’t solve the problem,” which in their view is resistance to US-Israeli colonial plans.

History has taught repeatedly that no grievance is ever forgotten until justice is attained. Thus, it is impossible to separate Israel’s bombing of Lebanon from its history as a state founded on the dispossession of another national entity — the Palestinians. It is also impossible for Israel to achieve its ends through force, just as the United States has failed in Iraq.

The State of Israel claims, nonetheless, a free hand to do whatever it wishes, wherever it wishes. In this, the US is its most valued apologist. In clear violation of an agreement brokered by Condoleezza Rice herself, Israel is starving Gaza to the point of humanitarian disaster, denying entry for the most rudimentary components of human survival. Supported by Bush’s America, Israel has refused to recognize the internationally declared free and fair election results that brought Hamas to power. In abducting members of the Hamas government, it places the entire Palestinian population at risk.

It is time that the Middle East ceases to be the abyss around which the entire world revolves for the sake of the State of Israel. The attempts to justify Israel’s state of exception — a racist conception of blood purity and regional supremacy — have poisoned not only the Middle East but world politics as a whole. Yet Israel continues to be given carte blanche to cut down all who resist its colonial plans without reference to any of the numerous instruments of international human rights and humanitarian law aimed at codifying the most basic moral principles of human relations.

Justice means addressing the unjustifiable exception to all contemporary norms that is the State of Israel. Justice will begin when the world admits what it knows about Israeli strategic intentions, and when Israel knows it can no longer hoodwink the world.

Action now!

We call for the following immediately:

1) Action in the UN General Assembly

The UN General Assembly has created the State of Israel. It has the political and moral obligation to protect the Lebanese state and people. The UN Security Council is morally bankrupt and practically impotent because Americavetoes anything that negatively affects Israel. Israel’s actions in Lebanon constitute a grave threat to international peace and security and thus challenge the founding principles of the United Nations. Under the “uniting for peace” resolution of 1950, the UN General Assembly is empowered to act when the Security Council neglects its duty to maintain order and peace between states. The General Assembly should immediately evoke this resolution and find or create means to restrain the State of Israel and/or expel it from the United Nations system. (Further reading: A Road to Peace in Lebanon? Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith (27 July 2006)

2) Immediate humanitarian aid for Lebanese civilians

Humanitarian and relief aid agencies have a duty to respond to the needs of all civilians in Lebanon affected byIsrael’s campaign of destruction, regardless of nationality. Many already warn of a severe humanitarian crisis but days away as thousands are internally displaced. Citizen-based initiatives are as important, if not more so. While the community of state leaders seems happy to watch the carnage, world civil society should demonstrate in action that this silence is not in our name.

3) Divestment drives and boycotts of the State of Israel

We call for an immediate and complete economic boycott of the State of Israel. Divestment campaigns — successful on many college campuses in the West — should be extended and publicized. The manufacturers of hundreds of US products give money directly to Israel (lists are available on the Internet). All should be boycotted immediately and until Israel has established again its credentials as a peaceful, democratic, and open state and society.

4) Immediate and sustained protest until the killing stops and real change occurs

It is time for wider humanity to address the core reasons for the litany of atrocities — from Iraq to Afghanistan,Lebanon to Palestine — to which we are all subjected as witnesses. These core reasons concern the State of Israel, and blind US support for the racist policies thereof.

Conclusion

The BRussells Tribunal, in solidarity with the people of Lebanon, accuses the State of Israel of war crimes and theUnited States of complicity. We demand the unconditional end of Israeli aggression against the sovereign state and sovereign people of Lebanon.

We call upon people of conscience and moral fortitude everywhere to vigorously oppose Israel’s campaign of mass murder and America’s grotesque alliance with Israeli state terrorism.

We stand with the Lebanese against imperialism and racism, and in defense of human values, democracy and international law.

The BRussells Tribunal Committee
http://brusselstribunal.org

The BRussells Tribunal calls on people who endorse the sentiment of this statement to diffuse it widely. Email contact for the BRussells Tribunal: info@brusselstribunal.org

This weekend participants from 8 countries — including Iraq — met in Madrid, along with active committees working within the framework of the conclusions of the World Tribunal on Iraq and participants from Spanish universities, to discuss and hear firsthand the plight of Iraqi academics and medical professionals who struggle to live amid constant threats, physical violence, kidnappings and the operation of death squads.

To date, over 220 Iraqi health professionals have been murdered. The BRussells Tribunal and The Spanish Campaign Against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq (CEOSI) has, with the help and support of Iraqis, compiled a list of over 190 assassinated Iraqi academics.

During the second day of the international seminar, participants focused on what actions can be taken to bring global attention to the destruction of Iraq’s intellectual and professional resources and hold accountable those directly responsible, including occupying powers that have failed their obligations under international law to protect the lives of Iraqi civilians.

We affirm 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

In terms of action, delegates reaffirm 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 fulfil 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