UConn conference altered over Israel protest

STORRS, Conn. (AP) — The Israeli-Palestinian dispute has spilled over into a conference at the University of Connecticut as four of five speakers canceled, with one refusing to attend because the event honored Israeli President Shimon Peres.

The Hartford Courant reports that Maryam al-Khawaja, a human rights activist who was to represent her father, Abdulhadi al-Khawaja of Bahrain, pulled out of the UNESCO Chair and Institute of Comparative Human Rights Conference. She accused Peres of unspecified human rights violations.

The elder al-Khawaja is in prison and was to be honored for human rights work.

The event continued Tuesday. The only speaker scheduled was Peres' son-in-law and personal physician, Raphael Walden, a vascular surgeon who was chief of surgery at Sheba Medical Center and a visiting professor at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

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Information from: The Hartford Courant