The International Conference for the Liberation of the Israeli Prisoners of War in Syria today called for an international investigation on the fate of the POWs and appealed to the International Red Cross Committee to intervene at once to secure their release. Two of the conference’s organizers. French philosopher and writer Simone de Beauvoir and League for the Rights of Man president Daniel Mayer, later told a press conference that the participants had no political motivations and had acted strictly out of humanitarian considerations.
Simone de Beauvoir, usually associated with extreme leftist positions, said “It is inadmissible to transform prisoners of war into political hostages. “The conference met here today behind closed doors. It was called by a committee which included Ms. de Beauvoir, musician-composer Leonard Bernstein (U.S.), Nobel Prize winner Prof. Rene, Cassin (France), author Andre Schwartz-Bart (Switzerland), writer James A. Michener (U.S.), and Lady Jennie Lee (U.K.).
The parents of four Israeli POWs held in Syria described their anguish and suffering as they have not even been officially informed that their sons are still alive. The mothers of the POWs appealed “to the mothers of Belgium and the rest of the world” to help alleviate this situation by writing Syrian ambassadors to obtain the POWs’ release. Among the dozens of messages received by the conference was one from an Italian Communist Senator. Umberto Terracini, and from former French Premier Pierre Mendes-France.
The resolution adopted expressed the participants’ “anguish in the face of the moral tortures inflicted upon the men’s families”; called for an international investigation on the fate of the POWs; and appealed to the International Red Cross Committee in Geneva and all other international organizations “to intervene at once in Damascus so as to try and obtain the men’s release.” Ms. de Beauvoir told the press conference that she had asked the Syrian Ambassador in Paris to permit her to meet the Israeli POWs in Syria but had not received his agreement. She reiterated her request for permission to meet the men.
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