Associated Press – A group of intellectuals, including French philosophers Bernard-Henri Lévy and André Glucksmann and the American writer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Elie Wiesel, urges European officials to “face the danger that Iranian leaders represent to the world, their will to acquire nuclear weapons and to ‘wipe Israel off the map'”.
The twenty signatories of this statement, published on Wednesday in the French daily Le Figaro, account for this call with their “commitment to democracy” and its values, and evoke their concern for the future of Europe and of the Near East.
They call on European leaders to “condemn violations of international law and of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons signed by Iran” and to “note the result of deception in endless negotiations that has no result”.
The text also presses European officials to “make the UN apply its charter forbidding every member state to incite hatred and to call for destruction of another member state”; to “denounce the revisionist thesis continually reaffirmed by Iranian officials”; and to “campaign against the Iranian regime’s funding of terrorist movements”.
“We appeal European leaders, whose historical responsibility is, in the name of their peoples, to hinder the return of barbarity”, the statement says.
According to philosopher Roger-Pol Droit, one of the signatories, the text published on Wednesday is “a call for firmness and ethical awareness”. He explained to The Associated Press that the statement had won 200 further signatures in the course of Wednesday.
Here is the text of the statement published in Le Figaro on September 27, 2006
Iran: A call on European leaders
In the name of our commitment to democracy, to its values, to the freedoms it guarantees, and to the respect of the rules of law which are its basis, we urge European officials to face the danger that Iranian leaders represent to the world, their will to acquire nuclear weapons and to “wipe Israel off the map”.
As citizens concerned with the future of Europe as well as the future of Near East, we are calling on them to:
– Condemn the violations of international law and of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons signed by Iran;
– Note the result of deception in endless negotiations that has no result;
– Make the UN to apply its charter forbidding every member state to incite hatred and to call for destruction of another member state, otherwise the UN would lose its legitimacy;
– Denounce the revisionist thesis continually reaffirmed by Iranian officials;
– Campaign against the Iranian regime’s funding of terrorist movements.
We appeal on European leaders, whose historical responsibility is, in the name of their people, to hinder the return of barbarity.
Henri Atlan, biologist
Monique Atlan, journalist
Paul Audi, philosopher
Marc Augé, anthropologist
Henri Berestycki, mathematician (EHESS)
Fabrice Chiche, association representative
Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Nobel Prize Laureate in Physics
Christian Delacampagne, philosopher
Thérèse Delpech, researcher
Roger-Pol Droit, philosopher, researcher at the CNRS
Sophie Dulac, company director
Erhard Friedberg, sociologist (CNRS, Sciences Po)
Gérard Garouste, painter
André Glucksmann, philosopher
André Green, psychoanalyst
Litza Guttieres-Green, psychonalyst
Bernard-Henri Lévy, writer, philosopher
François Rachline, writer, economist (Sciences Po)
Ezra Suleiman, professor of political science at Princeton
Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
