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Asks Human Rights Parley to Call for Study of Treatment of Minorities

May 7, 1968
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A resolution calling on the United Nations Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities to investigate the situation of minorities in various countries and submit a report to the U.N. Human Rights Commission was introduced in the international conference on human rights here yesterday and was expected to produce angry debate.

The draft resolution was introduced by Justice Zeev Zeltner, of Israel who told the assembly that the United Nations had not looked into the welfare of minorities since World War II and had not paid any attention to questions involving the cultural and religious rights of ethnic, racial and religious groups. The draft resolution was expected to be a source of embarrassment to the Soviet Union and to India and Pakistan because of the minorities issues raised in these countries. Justice Zeltner has frequently brought up in international forums the issue of Soviet discrimination against the Jews in Russia and observers here indicated belief that his draft resolution was motivated by the desire to bring the question of Soviet Jewry before the world agency.

The first committee of the conference, by a vote of 60 to none, with five abstentions, called on the conference yesterday to condemn Nazism, neo-Nazism and similar ideologies based on terrorism and racial intolerance as a blatant violation of basic human rights. It also recommended that the conference call on all states to declare illegal and prohibit Nazi and racist organizations and groups.

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