{"id":69350,"date":"2019-06-05T15:31:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T14:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/english-oas-secretary-general-almagro-receives-ajc-champion-of-democracy-award\/"},"modified":"2019-06-05T15:33:02","modified_gmt":"2019-06-05T19:33:02","slug":"almagro-el-secretario-general-de-la-oea-recibe-el-premio-defensor-de-la-democracia-del-ajc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/almagro-el-secretario-general-de-la-oea-recibe-el-premio-defensor-de-la-democracia-del-ajc\/","title":{"rendered":"OAS Secretary General Almagro Receives AJC Champion of Democracy Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><![CDATA[\n\/* Style Definitions *\/\nspan.prnews_span\n{\nfont-size:8pt;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\n}\na.prnews_a\n{\ncolor:blue;\n}\nli.prnews_li\n{\nfont-size:8pt;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\n}\np.prnews_p\n{\nfont-size:0.62em;\nfont-family:\"Arial\";\ncolor:black;\nmargin:0in;\n}\n]]><\/style>\n<div class=\"xn-content\">\n<p><span class=\"xn-location\">WASHINGTON<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-chron\">June 5, 2019<\/span> \/PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE\/ &#8212;\u00a0American Jewish Committee (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/c212.net\/c\/link\/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2488063-1&amp;h=1251766704&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ajc.org%2F&amp;a=AJC\" rel=\"nofollow\">AJC<\/a>) presented its Champion of Democracy Award to <span class=\"xn-person\">Luis Almagro<\/span>, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), for exemplifying courageous and visionary leadership in fighting for democratic rule in the region and for combating anti-Semitism and terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It is truly an honor to receive the AJC Champion of Democracy Award, which I accept on behalf of the millions that are victims today of hate, intolerance, and repression in the Americas,&#8221; said Almagro. &#8220;If there is genuine democracy in place, there is no place for evil to flourish.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The award was presented by <span class=\"xn-person\">Mario Fleck<\/span>, co-chair, and <span class=\"xn-person\">Dina Siegel Vann<\/span>, director, of AJC&#8217;s Belfer Institute for Latino and Latin American Affairs (BILLA), during the closing plenary session of the AJC Global Forum.<\/p>\n<p>The OAS head made two historic statements regarding anti-Semitism and international terrorism in the region in his remarks accepting the award.<\/p>\n<p>Almagro declared that the OAS Secretariat endorses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. The working definition offers a clear and comprehensive description of anti-Semitism in its various forms, including hatred and discrimination against Jews, Holocaust denial, and, of particular note, anti-Semitism as it relates to <span class=\"xn-location\">Israel<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The OAS will work every day to accomplish a Hemisphere free of anti-Semitism, free of terrorism, free of dictatorships,&#8221; said Almagro. &#8220;We must do more to educate our people to have zero tolerance towards anti-Semitism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Strongly denouncing &#8220;<span class=\"xn-location\">Iran<\/span> and Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, that have a solid base of operations in <span class=\"xn-location\">South America<\/span>,&#8221; Almagro said, &#8220;The cowards that attack democracy and the values of human dignity it represents have found fertile ground to operate in <span class=\"xn-location\">Cuba<\/span> and <span class=\"xn-location\">Venezuela<\/span>. And because evil breeds evil, and evil attracts evil, Latin American dictators in the 21<sup>st<\/sup> century have partnered with terrorists and anti-Semitic actors and organizations.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He recalled the <span class=\"xn-chron\">July 1994<\/span> bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in <span class=\"xn-location\">Buenos Aires<\/span>, the &#8220;worst terrorist act in the history of <span class=\"xn-location\">Argentina<\/span> and the largest Jewish death toll from anti-Semitic terrorism outside <span class=\"xn-location\">Israel<\/span> since World War II.&#8221; Both Iran and Hezbollah have been implicated in the bombing that left 85 dead and hundreds wounded.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;History has been made here today at the AJC Global Forum,&#8221; said AJC CEO <span class=\"xn-person\">David Harris<\/span>, who spontaneously joined Almagro on the stage after he concluded his remarks. &#8220;Secretary-General <span class=\"xn-person\">Luis Almagro<\/span> is the first Latin American leader to adopt the working definition of anti-Semitism,&#8221; said Harris.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, Harris continued, &#8220;I&#8217;ve never heard in my 30 years of advocacy with <span class=\"xn-location\">Latin America<\/span> such a clear denunciation of <span class=\"xn-location\">Iran<\/span> and Hezbollah. Again, history has been made. We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to our dear friend, <span class=\"xn-person\">Luis Almagro<\/span>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>AJC is &#8220;an essential partner of the OAS,&#8221; said Almagro, noting that AJC was granted NGO status by the OAS in 2005. &#8220;You can count on our multilateral political platform to fight hatred, to educate, to increase awareness, and to help Member States adopt measures and cooperate to fight anti-Semitism and terrorism.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Almagro has been a close friend of AJC since he served as Foreign Minister of <span class=\"xn-location\">Uruguay<\/span>, 2010-2015. He especially travelled to <span class=\"xn-location\">Mexico<\/span>, shortly after he was inaugurated in <span class=\"xn-chron\">May 2015<\/span> as OAS Secretary General,\u00a0to address AJC&#8217;s Belfer Center for Latino and Latin American Affairs (BILLA) 10<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary celebration in <span class=\"xn-location\">Mexico<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p>The AJC Global Forum, taking place <span class=\"xn-chron\">June 2-4<\/span> in <span class=\"xn-location\">Washington, D.C.<\/span>, is the advocacy organization&#8217;s signature annual event, bringing together nearly 2,500 civic, political, and Jewish leaders from across <span class=\"xn-location\">the United States<\/span> and 50 countries around the world.<\/p>\n<p>SOURCE  American Jewish Committee<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"xn-content\">\n<p><span class=\"xn-location\">WASHINGTON<\/span>, <span class=\"xn-chron\">June 5, 2019<\/span> \/PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE\/ &#8212;\u00a0American Jewish Committee (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/c212.net\/c\/link\/?t=0&amp;l=en&amp;o=2488063-1&amp;h=1251766704&amp;u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ajc.org%2F&amp;a=AJC\" rel=\"nofollow\">AJC<\/a>) presented its Champion of Democracy Award to <span class=\"xn-person\">Luis Almagro<\/span>, Secretary-General of the Organization of American States (OAS), for exemplifying courageous and visionary leadership in fighting for democratic rule in the region&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gobierno-y-politica"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hispanicprwire.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}