Stanford Report, Jan. 21, 2004

Pearl murder to be examined

The prominent French journalist and philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy, author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl?, will discuss the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 22, in the Oksenberg Room on the third floor of Encina Hall.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the John S. Knight Fellowships for Professional Journalists and the Stanford Institute for International Studies. Lévy had originally been scheduled to speak here Dec. 1, 2003, but canceled after he was asked to participate in the signing of the Geneva Accord, an unofficial agreement between Israeli and Palestinian representatives.

Pearl, who graduated from Stanford's Department of Communication in 1985, was kidnapped in Pakistan on Jan. 23, 2002, and later killed.

Lévy is the author of some 30 books, including works of philosophy, fiction and biography. He has written several books on the Islamic Middle East, including his first book, Red India. He also wrote (with Gilles Hertzog) and directed (with Alain Ferrari) Bosna!, a documentary film about the war in Bosnia.

Lévy started his career covering the war between Pakistan and India for Combat, the newspaper founded by Albert Camus during the Nazi occupation of France.

In addition, Lévy has held several diplomatic positions with the French government. Most recently, in 2002, he was appointed by French President Jacques Chirac to head a fact-finding mission to Afghanistan in the wake of the 2001 war against the Taliban, which Lévy supported.