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'Interfaith Dialogue on the Sudan Crisis' with Survivors of Slavery and Genocide Comes to University of Pennsylvania; African Students Association, Hillel, Amnesty International Host Panel on World's Failure to Stop Genocide

PHILADELPHIA — A survivor of the genocide in Darfur whose grandfather was burned alive by Arab militiamen, a survivor of slavery from southern Sudan, and the human rights activist on the frontlines of the struggle against slavery and genocide in Sudan are coming to the University of Pennsylvania for an "Interfaith Dialogue on the Sudan Crisis."

Mohammed Yahya, Simon Deng, and Charles Jacobs will be the featured panelists at a symposium on Monday at 7 p.m. in Room 255 at Jon M. Huntsman Hall (entrance on Walnut and 38th street). The event is co-sponsored by the African Students Association, Hillel, Amnesty, STAND, and various other student groups.

Yahya will present on the experience of African Muslims in Darfur, who face a campaign of genocide waged by the Arab Muslim-dominated regime in Khartoum. Sudan's president Omar al-Bashir was recently named the world's No. 1 dictator by Parade Magazine, and his armed forces are responsible for the death over 100,000 civilians in Darfur and the displacement of over 1,000,000 people.

Deng, who escaped after being held as a slave for several years by an Arab master in northern Sudan, will discuss the racism directed against Africans in Sudanese society. "We are called Abeed," notes Deng. "This word in Arabic means 'slave.'" Deng was recently profiled on BET's Nightly News and in the Christian Science Monitor.

Jacobs, the co-founder and chairman of the American Anti- Slavery Group, will speak about the failure of the international community, the academic community, and the human rights community to address a genocide in Sudan that is over two decades old. He will recount the many obstacles faced by the abolitionist and anti-genocide movement and discuss why the United Nations has repeatedly failed in Sudan.

Melissa Hauptman, one of the event organizers, explained that students will not sit by as genocide unfolds on their watch. "As the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors, I don't want to have to tell my grandchildren that I did nothing while hundreds of thousands were enslaved and slaughtered in Sudan. We want to help stop this genocide."