'9/11 Truther' Condemned by UN Chief & Obama Administration

Iowa University and Bank of the West Urged to Cancel Sponsorship of '9/11 Truther' Condemned by UN Chief & Obama Administration

For Immediate Release

GENEVA, Feb. 4 - The University of Iowa, which receives $255 million a year from taxpayers, and Bank of the West, a major California bank, are being urged to withdraw sponsorship of a controversial speaker who was condemned last week by the United Nations and the Obama Administration for suggesting the 9/11 terrorist attacks were an “inside job” orchestrated by the U.S. government—a conspiracy theory he has promoted in numerous writings and interviews.

Richard Falk, who works for the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council as its investigator on “Israel’s violations of the principles of international law,” is scheduled to be the keynote speaker for a symposium next Thursday, February 10, entitled “Ten Years After 9/11: Rethinking Counterterrorism,” organized by the university’s law and human rights departments.

Sponsors listed on the university website include nine of its academic departments, as well as Bank of the West, one of California’s largest banks and a subsidiary of France’s BNP Paribas.

But international law experts and human rights activists say Falk is the last person who should address a serious university panel on 9/11.

Hillel Neuer, an international lawyer who heads UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring group in Geneva, Switzerland, sent a letter today to Sally Mason, president of the university, urging that Falk be disinvited. The watchdog group also wrote to J. Michael Shepherd, CEO of Bank of the West. Neuer said another major corporation already pulled its name off the sponsor list, and he hoped the bank would do the same.

“Richard Falk is America’s most high-profile promoter of the 9/11 conspiracy theory, which calls into question whether Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon,” said Neuer. “It’s wrong to grant an iota of legitimacy to those who deny great atrocities, or to legitimize their twisted political agendas. Hosting Falk right after the U.N. condemned his noxious views is doubly offensive.”

Last month, Falk published a blog about an “apparent cover-up” related to the 9/11 attacks. In response, on January 25, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon addressed the Human Rights Council, saying, “I condemn this sort of inflammatory rhetoric. It is preposterous—an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack.” It was the first time that a UN chief publicly censured one of the organization’s own human rights officials.

Ambassador Susan E. Rice, U.S. representative to the U.N., also spoke out, saying, “Mr. Falk’s comments are despicable and deeply offensive, and I condemn them in the strongest terms.” She said the cause of human rights “will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.”
Click here to hear Falk's October 26, 2010 interview on "No Lies Radio," part of the "9/11 Truth" movement, where he endorses Iran's Ahamdinejad and the "inside job" argument.
Mr. Falk has also used his UN position to legitimize the Hamas terrorist group, which he portrays as a peaceful organization. As the Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported in March, Falk is so extreme that even the Palestinian Authority asked him to quit—which Falk himself admitted—on account of him being “a partisan of Hamas.”

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More on Richard Falk’s endorsement of the 9/11 conspiracy theory
Richard Falk wrote the Foreword to the most notorious 9/11 conspiracy book. Read text here. In the book's Acknowledgments, author David Ray Griffin says he is "indebted to Richard Falk for reasons that go beyond his gracious willingness to write the Foreword. It was through his influence that I first began working on global political matters... And it was through him that I becme connected with Olive Branch Press of Interlink Publishing," the publisher of the book. "I am especially grateful for this connection."

- On January 11, 2011, Mr. Falk wrote on his blog that, “There are, to be sure, conspiracies that promote unacknowledged goals, and enjoy the benefit of government protection… The arguments swirling around the 9/11 attacks are emblematic of these issues. What fuels suspicions of conspiracy is the reluctance to address the sort of awkward gaps and contradictions in the official explanations that David Ray Griffin (and other devoted scholars of high integrity) have been documenting in book after book ever since his authoritative The New Pearl Harbor in 2004 (updated in 2008).”

- In writing the above, Mr. Falk asserted the existence of 9/11 “conspiracies,” and he unequivocally endorsed the notorious 9/11 conspiracy tract, The New Pearl Harbor as an “authoritative” book, and its author, David Ray Griffin, as a “devoted scholar of high integrity.” The main thesis of this book is that the World Trade Center was not attacked by terrorists, but was rather “an inside job.” (See book's quotes here.)

- Mr. Falk’s comments are only the latest manifestation in his years-long campaign to promote Griffin’s conspiracy tracts. In fact, Mr. Falk himself wrote the Foreword to The New Pearl Harbor, praising the book as “extraordinary,” “so special” and as having “the potentiality to become a force of history.” Falk's endorsement is printed on the book jacket, as the first one.

- In the book’s Acknowledgments, author David Ray Griffin recognized the material role played by Mr. Falk in the publishing of the book. Griffin says that he is "indebted to Richard Falk for reasons that go beyond his gracious willingness to write the Foreword. It was through his influence that I first began working on global political matters... And it was through him that I became connected with Olive Branch Press of Interlink Publishing," the publisher of the book. "I am especially grateful for this connection."

- According to Griffin, Mr. Falk tried to promote the book by soliciting an endorsement from leading anti-American activist Noam Chomsky. "Richard Falk wrote to Chomsky and he said, ‘I think you should read this manuscript. My friend David Griffin has been a great admirer of yours; he’s built on your work. He would love to have a blurb from you. Chomsky wrote back and said Dick, ‘No, I will not read your friend Griffin’s book.’"

- Mr. Falk has used his UN imprimatur to promote the 9/11 conspiracy theory. In Falk’s November 2008 article entitled “9/11: More than meets the eye”, published in The Journal, a Scottish newspaper, he signed in his UN capacity, as “an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories.” Falk’s article implied that the 9/11 attacks were committed by “the established elites of the American governmental structure.” The article praised the work of David Ray Griffin.

www.unwatch.org

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