New Report Gives UN Rights Chief Mixed Reviews on Confronting Rights Violators

A performance evaluation on Louise Arbour. It ain't pretty. Excerpted from UN Watch:

A new study on Louise Arbour's performance as UN rights chief gives her mixed reviews on confronting violators, and urges her replacement, Navanethem Pillay, to adopt a stronger approach toward UN heavyweights such as China, Russia and Egypt. The Right to Name and Shame, a 48-page report by UN Watch, a human rights NGO in Geneva that monitors the United Nations, was presented today at the inaugural meeting of the UN Human Rights Council's expert advisors. The report is the first to scrutinize the tenure of a UN high commissioner for human rights. Click Here for Full Report: "The Right to Name and Shame"

On the Arab-Israel conflict, while Arbour’s approach could not be compared to that of the Arab-dominated Human Rights Council, whose resolutions have justified Hamas and Hezbollah terrorism, her statements were disproportionately weighted against Israel. Arbour rarely if ever criticized Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria or other countries in the Middle East with highly problematic records.

UN Watch to Rights Council: Durban II Draft ‘Breaches Red Lines’

Muslims continue to dictate public policy by throwing temper tantrums about the so-called “defamation of Islam" while ignoring its own 100 year long villification of Jews and Israel. Via UN Watch:

A "non-paper" published by the planners of next year's UN conference on racism already singles out Israel and breaches Europe's red lines, UN Watch told the UN Human Rights Council this week.

The Durban Review Conference, set for next April in Geneva, will be a highly visible, amply funded, well-advertised and well-attended gathering that will focus the world’s attention on the West’s defamation of Islam and racial discrimination against its adherents, as well as on Israel’s racist persecution of Palestinians. At least that was the demand of Islamic states and their allies expressed at the Council's debate on Tuesday.

Pakistan for the Islamic group and Egypt for the African group called for addressing “new and emerging manifestations of racism” — i.e., the so-called “defamation of Islam” — in what would amount to reopening, instead of reviewing, the 2001 Durban Declaration. They demanded the UN give the conference more funding, more media exposure, more staff, and more NGO delegates. More Durban.

Pakistan further called for alterations in international human rights law to curb freedom of speech deemed offensive to Islamic sensitivities. It complained of “boycotts and the threat of disengagement” from the conference. Egypt, meanwhile, slammed the “glaring institutional weakness” of the UN bureaucrats charged with servicing the conference.

Algeria and Azerbaijan urged the conference to address the victims of “foreign occupation” — i.e., the alleged victims of Israeli racism.

For full UN summary, click here.

Click for video of UN Watch speech.

9/11 Conspiracy Theorist Begins Post as UN Expert on "Palestine"

Today the UN Human Rights Council welcomed Richard Falk as the new expert to oversee its standing investigation into "Israel's violations of the principles and bases of international law."

When UN Watch took the floor to ask Falk to explain his support for 9/11 conspiracy theories, as documented by the Times of London, Egypt made a failed bid to delete the question from the record.

See full video and text below.

Click for video

UN Human Rights Council, 8th Session

Agenda Item 7: "Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories"

Interactive Dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Richard Falk

UN Watch Statement
Delivered by Hillel Neuer, June 16, 2008

Thank you, Mr. President.

Professor Falk, we appreciate this opportunity to ask you questions.

As we gather to address the Middle East, let us all commit to a future where every child, Palestinian and Israeli alike, will see the promise of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights become reality.

With this goal in mind, Professor Falk, let us turn to the report that you presented today, HRC 7/17.

One of the report’s exceptional features is its sharp criticism of the United Nations itself. Leading UN institutions and officials are accused of being insufficiently supportive of the Palestinians, of failing to acknowledge international law, which, according to paragraph 54, “brings the very commitment of the United Nations to human rights into question.”

The report criticizes the United Nations role in the Quartet and the Road Map for Peace. It criticizes the United Nations Security Council and one of its permanent members in particular. It criticizes the United Nations Secretary-General, suggesting, in paragraph 53, that he may be refusing to fulfill legal obligations out of political reasons.

Professor Falk, my first question to you is by what methodology does one challenge some UN decisions, while accepting others uncritically?

Why are there no questions about today’s Agenda Item targeting Israel, as expressed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on 20 June 2007, and I quote: “The Secretary-General is disappointed at the Council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item given the range and scope of allegations of Human Rights violations throughout the world.”

Finally, in light of the concerns expressed by the President of this Council -- in the newspaper Le Temps and elsewhere -- about the credibility of this council on the Middle East, could you tell us what credibility you expect your reports to have, when leading newspapers such as The Times of London are commenting on your support for the 9/11 conspiracy theories of David Ray Griffin, who argues, and I quote from the Times article of April 15th, “that no plane hit the Pentagon,” and that “the World Trade Center was brought down by a controlled demolition”?

Thank you, Mr. President.

Human Rights Council President Doru Costea quietly declined to grant Egypt’s request to censor UN Watch's question from the record.For more on Richard Falk, see this.

Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bahrain: “Not Qualified” for UN Rights Council Election

Monitoring the United Nations, via UN Watch:

Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Gabon and Zambia fail to meet the minimum standards required for today’s election of 15 new members to the UN Human Rights Council, according to a report by UN Watch and Freedom House, two independent human rights organizations that monitor country compliance with democracy and individual liberties. Click here for report.

“Pakistan has a record of systematic violations of basic human rights, including arbitrary detention, enforced disappearances, persecution of religious minorities and a judicial system that fosters violence against of women as a form of punishment,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, which is headquartered in Geneva together with the 47-nation council.

“As head of its Islamic bloc for the past two years, Pakistan has helped the council adopt a series of Orwellian resolutions that shield abusers like Sudan from scrutiny, undermine the role of independent experts, and eviscerate the international protection of freedom of speech in order to legitimize Islamic blasphemy restrictions,” Neuer added.

“Unless the UN stops electing the worst violators to the Human Rights Council,” said Neuer, “we will continue to have the foxes guarding the chickens -- with the likes of China, Saudi Arabia and Cuba blocking action for Tibet, women’s rights or jailed journalists.”

According to the 2006 General Assembly resolution that established the council, members are to be elected based on their ability to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.”

The report by UN Watch and Freedom House examined 20 candidate countries according to their record of human rights protection at home, and their support for human rights resolutions at the UN. The report cites data from their own 2008 studies as well as assessments published by Reporters Without Borders, The Economist’s Democracy Index, and the Democracy Coalition Project.

The joint report sparked a heated debate this month in the countries that were found to be “Not Qualified,” with a front-page story in Bahrain’s Gulf Daily News, editorials in Pakistani newspapers like The Post, and articles in Sri Lanka’s The Mirror, and GabonEco.

Bahrain’s ambassador in Geneva, Abdulla Abdullatif Abdulla, described the report by Freedom House and UN Watch as "unwarranted and unfounded."

However, the UN Watch and Freedom House findings were echoed by 11 Bahraini human rights organizations—including the recently-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights—who pledged not to support Bahrain's candidacy for a seat on the council unless the government improved civil liberties.

They demanded legislation to improve the rights of migrant workers such as housemaids, prevent racial discrimination, give redress to victims of torture, introduce citizenship equality and protect the role of human rights defenders. The demands were presented in a meeting with Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Nazar Al Baharna.

The joint report also rated the qualifications of Brazil, Burkina Faso, and East Timor as “questionable.”

In a separate study, UN Watch found that the council failed to speak out for victims of the world’s most severe human rights violations.

The former Commission on Human Rights became discredited for ignoring most of the world’s violators and focusing instead on Arab-sponsored condemnations of Israel.

However, despite the attempts at reform, the new council has only aggravated that trend.

Since being created in 2006, the council adopted 19 Islamic-sponsored resolutions against Israel, including in four emergency sessions, several of which were opposed by Western states for omitting mention of attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. Otherwise, it adopted four censures of Burma and one of North Korea.Although Sudan was debated several times, it has consistently escaped censure, with the help of allies in the Islamic, Arab and African groups that control the council’s majority. Several council resolutions praised the Khartoum regime for its “cooperation.”

A recent resolution on the Democratic Republic of Congo, where 4 million have been killed, eliminated the Council’s investigation of abuses there, one of several recent moves drawing sharp critcism from human rights activists.

http://www.unwatch.org/

First Time: UN Hears from Jewish Refugees of Arab Lands

UN Watch Testifies Before UN Human Rights Council on Forgotten Refugees

The history of Palestinian refugees deserves international attention. So does the history of one million Jewish refugees from the Arab-Israel conflict. Yet the United Nations has devoted countless resolutions and debates to only one side of this story, completely ignoring the other.

For the first time ever in the UN Human Rights Council, at its recently concluded session, the suffering of Jewish refugees from Arab lands was also placed on the international agenda. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Congress adopted a historic resolution recognizing that all victims of the conflict must be treated equally.

Click here to watch video of UN speech.

Racism and Historical Truth:Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands

Agenda Item 9: Interactive Dialogue with Special Rapporteur on Racism Doudou Diène

UN Human Rights Council, 7th Session, March 19, 2008

Delivered by UN Watch delegate Regina Bublil Waldman

Thank you, Mr. President.

We thank the Special Rapporteur for his work against racism, and address two areas of his report.

Dr. Diene, in Addendum 1 you mention Libya’s treatment of ethnic minorities. In Addenda 3 and 4, you envision a multicultural society based on two principles: respect for historical truth and non-discrimination against minorities.

As a victim of Libyan discrimination, I agree: only with historical truth can we build a better future.

Today I wear my traditional ethnic dress to celebrate my heritage, but also to mourn its destruction.

One million Jews lived in the Middle East at the turn of the century. Today, less than five thousand remain.

Their plight has been ignored by the international community.

Their story is my story.

In 1948, there were thirty-six thousand Jews living in Libya. Today, there are none.

During the 1967 war between Israel and her Arab neighbors, mobs took to the streets and shouted, “Edbah el Yehud!” — “Slaughter the Jews!”

They burned my father’s warehouse and came to burn our home.

An honorable Muslim neighbor stopped them, and saved our lives.

The government ordered the expulsion of all Jews from Libya, where my family had lived for hundreds of years. They confiscated our homes and all our assets.

We were given this one-way travel document — never allowed to return.

My family was put on a bus to the airport. The bus driver got out, and tried to burn the bus with us in it. We were rescued from death by two Christian friends.

I come here today bearing no hatred -- only these historical truths:

Jews have been an indigenous people of the Middle East for over 2,500 years.

On the basis of race and religion, Arab regimes subjected Jews to arbitrary arrest, confiscation of property and expulsions. This is fully documented in this report by Justice for Jews from Arab Countries.

The UNHCR has ruled that Jews fleeing from Arab countries were ‘bona fide’ refugees, victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Dr. Diene, your report envisions a future of tolerance and equality. Applying the principles you set forth, we trust you will examine the actions of Libya and other Middle Eastern countries that forced out their Jewish minorities.

Like in South Africa, only the acknowledgment of truth and history will lead to reconciliation.

Thank you, Mr. President.
(With special thanks to BBI as co-signatory.)

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Amnesty International Urged to Withdraw Invitation to Qaddafi Supporter

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. Via UN Watch:

Amnesty International should reconsider its speaking invitation to Jean Ziegler, a UN official who co-founded the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize and has supported the regimes of Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro and other major human rights violators, said UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization (Click to read UN Watch letter).

At its annual Swiss conference to be held this Saturday in Bern, Amnesty International plans to feature Mr. Ziegler together with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey. In a letter sent today to Amnesty Secretary-General Irene Khan, who will be appearing on the same panel, UN Watch said it was “unconscionable that Amnesty, a leading human rights organization, would invite Mr. Ziegler, and we urge you to reconsider.”

As was reported in Time Magazine and elsewhere, Mr. Ziegler co-founded the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize in 1989, seen by many as a propaganda vehicle of the Libyan regime. Past recipients include Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The letter to Amnesty accused Mr. Ziegler of “supporting regimes that, according to your own reports, rank among the world’s worst violators of human rights, such as Zimbabwe, which Mr. Ziegler defended, saying, ‘Mugabe has history and morality with him.’”

UN Watch noted that Mr. Ziegler was recently elected to be an expert advisor to the UN Human Rights Council “by the same countries that decided to ignore the killings in Tibet and then to eviscerate protection of free speech.” Ziegler’s election drew strong protests from human rights groups and dissidents, parliamentarians in Europe and Canada, and editorialists in The Guardian, The Times of London and Investor's Business Daily.

“The career of Mr. Ziegler symbolizes the cynical subversion of human rights that has so harmed the United Nations and its Human Rights Council... By granting Mr. Ziegler a podium at your conference, Amnesty International will harm its own reputation, and, worse, undermine the principles of the international human rights movement—and the cause of the millions of victims we are sworn to protect,” said UN Watch.

"This sends the wrong message at the wrong time," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

Take Action: Urge Swiss to Cancel UN Nomination of Jean Ziegler

Another human rights fraud is about to be elected to the UN Human Rights Council. Via UN Watch:

Stop Jean Ziegler Before March 26, 2008

Who is Jean Ziegler?

This supporter of dictators is assured election to the UN Human Rights Council -- unless Switzerland is persuaded to withdraw his nomination.

First, watch this compelling video.

UN Watch has learned that on next Wednesday, March 26, 2008, the United Nations is expected to elect Jean Ziegler—founder of the "Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize"—as one of only three Western advisory experts on the Human Rights Council. As the darling of the council's ruling Arab and Third World blocs, Ziegler's election is virtually assured.

Unless his sponsor changes course.

Ziegler enjoys close ties with Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, and according to a report this week from the Human Rights Tribune, Swiss diplomats are engaged in an intense lobbying and vote-trading campaign to elect Ziegler, whom they nominated in November. Only the Swiss withdrawal of their nomination will prevent Ziegler from being elected.

Click Here to Take Action.

New video documents how Jean Ziegler served as an apologist for repressive rulers like Colonel Khaddafi and Fidel Castro.

Analysis:

Astonishing to believe — but at the UN, too often, not too astonishing for it not to happen. Jean Ziegler has a long history of supporting unsavory rulers and regimes, including some of the world's worst human rights violators. As UN hunger expert for the past 7 years, he ignored regions with the most severe food crises, and instead devoted his time to anti-Western polemics.

• Apologist for some of the worst human rights criminals of our time.
• After Fidel Castro imprisoned 70 journalists, Ziegler proclaimed "total support for the Cuban revolution." During an official visit to the Communist island in October, Ziegler hailed the virtues of Castro regime even while he refused to meet Cuban dissidents.
• "...Ziegler went to Hanoi during the '80s, where he heaped praise upon General Vo Nguyen Giap and Ho Chi Minh. Indeed, it would be hard to find an intellectual more stained by collaboration with evil regimes in the 20th century than Mr. Ziegler ." (Jan Marejko, "Che Guevara Lives at the UN," August 2002.)
• Served Ethiopian dictator Mengistu — who used famine as a weapon to kill thousands — by helping draft one-party constitution.
• Abused UN food mandate. As UN special rapporteur on the right to food for the past seven years, Mr. Ziegler ignored many of the world’s most starving populations, instead focusing attention on his personal political agenda. As documented in the UN Watch report “Blind to Burundi,” during 2000 to 2004, Mr. Ziegler systematically failed to speak out for numerous food emergencies, in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone and elsewhere.
• In 2002 he praised the Zimbabwean dictator, saying, “Mugabe has history and morality with him.” He paid visits to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Kim Il-Sung in North Korea.
• In 2006, during an interview in Lebanon, Mr. Ziegler said, “I refuse to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national resistance movement. I can understand Hezbollah when they kidnap soldiers...”

In 1989, four months after Libyan bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Jean Ziegler establishes "Khaddafi Human Rights Prize," in collaboration with Libyan dictator.

In 2002, prize is awarded to French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy—and to Jean Ziegler himself. Ziegler goes to Libya to attend ceremony, but claims he went for "unspecified UN business."

Click here to take action now.

Cuba lashes out, threatens to silence UN Watch after speech exposing Hamas inversion

Cuba hates those Jews, along with the other Muslim member nations of the UN. From UN Watch:

An emergency session today of the UN’s 47-nation Human Rights Council condemned Israel for “grave violations of the human and humanitarian rights of Palestinian civilians,” for “undermining” the peace process, “incessant and repeated Israeli military attacks,” and causing “loss of life and injuries among Palestinian civilians, including women and children.”

The resolution, which made no mention of Hamas rocket attacks or their Israeli victims, was adopted by 30 votes to 1 (Canada), with 15 abstentions from European Union and other countries.

UN Watch thanks the many hundreds who urged world leaders not to support the biased and counter-productive text.

Click for video of UN Watch's testimony — and Cuba's bullying reply.

The United Nations and Anti-Semitism

The United Nations and Anti-Semitism

2004-2007 Report Card

A Report by UN Watch, November 1, 2007

Click for Full Report (PDF)

60 Years Ago Today: UN Votes for Jewish and Arab States

Excerpted from UN Watch:

Sixty years ago today, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to created two states, one Arab and one Jewish, out of the former British mandate of Palestine. The world body played an integral role in fashioning the original two-state solution that the international community so desperately seeks today.

It is odd, then, that not only did the UN today decline to celebrate this proud moment, but it actually held rites of mourning—somber ceremonies around the globe, pursuant to Arab-sponsored resolutions, commemorating the annual “Palestinian Solidarity Day” with carefully screened speakers who, one after another, mercilessly slammed the Jewish state.

Today in Geneva, for example, the opening statement by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, read by a representative, lamented the “indignities and violence of occupation and conflict that Palestinians continue to suffer.” His message did mention that Israelis have died, too, but overwhelmingly pointed the finger at the Jewish state. The chairman of the “Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People,” Prasad Kariyawasam of Sri Lanka, accused Israel of committing “collective punishment” in Gaza. The Arab League’s Saad Alfarargi denounced the “ruthless daily attacks by Israel,” its “oppressive policies,” and its “apartheid wall.”

Remarkably, the next to join the jackals was a representative of World Vision—a major organization partly funded by the U.S. government (and which last year received $944 million from Americans), and whose mandate speaks of “relief and development,” not overt political activity. The speech by Thomas Getman, the organization’s Geneva-based international relations director, said not a thing about Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror attacks and their calls to destroy Israel, granting the terror groups effective immunity.

Instead, Mr. Getman sought to promote hatred of Israel among the assembled delegates, so innocently inviting them to “think about the first child that each of us saw in a terrible situation because of the Israeli occupation.” Conveniently left out of this picture were the Israeli pre-schoolers and other children who are attacked daily by Palestinian Kassam rockets--and the men that launch them. (Mr. Getman’s extremist political activity, conflicting with World Vision’s humanitarian mandate, is nothing new; in 2006, when the representative of a human rights NGO was cut short during a UN debate by Syrian objections—Damascus had demanded a special agenda item on “occupation,” but sought to censor any suggestion that this might include its own occupation of Lebanon—Mr. Getman shouted at the NGO representative, and published an open letter siding with Syria.)

So much for how the UN honored the 60th anniversary of one of its most famous resolutions.

That the only ones holding celebrations today were Jewish groups is, some might argue, hardly surprising. After all, back in November 1947, it was the Jews who, from Tel Aviv to Buenos Aires, danced and cried tears of joy when the international community voted to recognize the revival of a Jewish homeland. After 2,000 years of exile—and two years after the Nazi Holocaust that murdered one third of the Jewish people—genuine self-determination, even if only on a truncated portion of the original League of Nations mandate, was a dream come true.

(This video powerfully conveys the sense of drama and exhilaration among Jews worldwide, whose ears were glued to radio sets as each country vote was announced.)

And it was the Arabs who immediately rejected the UN vote—“My country will never recognize such a decision,” said Syria, echoing its peers—and initiated bloody riots the very next day. These were followed with the opening of hostilities against Palestine’s Jewish community by irregular forces, and then, after the British left on May 14, 1948, with the full invasion of Israel by the armies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Transjordan and Iraq.

So is it any wonder that it was once again only the Jews who, in several communities around the world, were today celebrating?

By treating this day as a catastrophe, both the Arab states and the UN undermine their stated commitment to the two-state solution. Until November 29, 1947 becomes a day of UN celebration, the organization effectively encourages today’s call by Hamas for the cancellation of resolution 181.

What is it about standing up for human rights that the United Nations finds so difficult?

An excellent read from Anne Bayefsky. An excerpt, from Geneva Conventions:

A year ago, then Secretary-General Kofi Annan dissolved the U.N. Commission on Human Rights under pressure, after the commission discredited itself repeatedly, even electing a Libyan chairman. Now its successor -- the U.N. Human Rights Council -- is proving itself to be worse than what it replaced.This week the council marked its first anniversary in Geneva, Switzerland, by adopting an agenda that is an affront to the civilized world. It deletes the job of investigating human rights violations in the brutal dictatorships of Belarus and Cuba and instead focuses its attention uniquely on Israel. It also serves notice through a new code of conduct that other human rights investigators will heretofore be on a short leash: A newly adopted Code of Conduct states that failure to exercise "restraint," "moderation" and "discretion" will be grounds for dismissal.

The U.N. General Assembly created the council without specifying membership criteria, such as, say, actually respecting human rights. The council now includes the likes of Angola, Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Russia and Saudi Arabia. Less than half of its members, using the Freedom House's yardstick, are fully free democracies. And after a successful take-over bid of regional blocs within the council, the Organization of the Islamic Conference now dominates it.The result is a decimation of a human rights system created over decades, with a new intense focus on Israel. Israel has been the subject of three special sessions, has been singled out in 75% of the council's state-specific resolutions and will continue to be routinely condemned until council members decide "the occupation" is over -- an occupation many members believe began with Israel's creation.

See UN Watch's latest video "Human Rights Under Assault"

The 5-minute video offers a glimpse into how the UN's highest human rights body—dominated by the worst abusers of human rights—is tragically being turned on its head, to attack democracies, destroy mechanisms of human rights protection, and assault the very idea of human rights.

Click here to see the video.