Panel at AAAS Says Iraq Scholars and Students Need Help from U.S. Counterparts

There are classrooms short of desks, libraries stripped of books. The computer labs have few working computers, offices are battered and whole buildings are crumbling. For students and faculty, kidnapping and execution are a daily risk.

A panel of scholars with first-hand knowledge of education and academic freedom in Iraq spelled out a grim picture of the war-torn country at a AAAS panel discussion in Washington D.C. to mark world Human Rights Day (10 December). But they offered a thread of hope, suggesting that aid from and collaboration with scholars in the U.S. could make a difference in the lives of Iraqi educators and students.

The 8 December event was organized by the AAAS Science and Human Rights program[link: http://shr.aaas.org/], which annually organizes a special event to observe world Human Rights Day, the anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The event is an opportunity to discuss the relevance of science to human rights and to honor an individual or an organization that has made a significant contribution to human rights within the scientific community.

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