According to the UN’s latest budget document on the Durban II preparations, China and Russia are the greatest contributors to its voluntary fund.
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Archive for April, 2008
In advance of next week’s first major planning session of the UN’s “Durban II” conference on racism, member states have filled out questionnaires on their actions and policies to combat discrimination. Iran’s submission, however, dodges any questions of racism in that country, which it says is blessed with “the absence of any division based on race or ethnicity in any walk of life.”
Asked by the UN to identify manifestations of racism “with a view to eliminating them in your country,” Iran sidestepped any reference to its own treatment of minorities. Instead, Tehran pointed the finger at other countries, accusing them of “defamation of religions” and Islamophobia, and devoted a large section to “gross and systematic violation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian
Territories.”
Although the UN General Assembly condemned Iran in December for its violations against Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Christians, Jews, Sufis, Sunni Muslims and Baha’is, the submission by the fundamentalist regime made no reference to its treatment of these groups.
Click here to read press release with hyperlinks
Geneva, April 16, 2008 — 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.
Bahrain First to Undergo “Seriously Flawed” Review Procedure
Geneva, April 7, 2008 — Facing opposition by Arab, Islamic and African states, the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to webcast its review of Bahrain, the first to undergo a new procedure that will scrutinize all UN members, constituted a small victory for reform, UN Watch said today.
“The new system of universal periodic review has serious institutional flaws, including its grant of excessive control over the outcome to the state under review,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization.
“Although the official verdicts are likely to be questionable at best, the very fact of holding debates on countries that were previously given a free pass, even if only once every four years, helps activists to shine an international spotlight on human rights violations, and to challenge government responses that are inadequate or false.”
Today’s three-hour session on Bahrain offered little in the way of scrutiny, and was dominated by praise of the gulf state’s record. In his presentation, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Nizar Al Baharna told the council that Bahrain respected women’s rights, equality and freedom of expression. Of the more than 30 states that then took the floor, most were fellow Islamic nations that complimented Bahrain’s record on “social and economic rights,” with Pakistan citing the growth of its GDP.
“We are deeply disappointed that the session summarily ignored the detailed NGO submissions, which presented evidence of restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, torture, and violations of women’s rights,” said Neuer. “Although the U.S., Canada, France and a handful of Western democracies posed questions, their interventions were overly cautious and diplomatic, and did little to make this new procedure into one of real scrutiny. Human rights victims deserve far better.”
On Friday, the Arab, Islamic and African blocs made a last-ditch effort to block UN webcasting of the session, but their attempt failed. Click here to read set of demands.
“After a series of major setbacks at the council—including the outrageous insertion of anti-blasphemy provisions into the freedom of expression mandate—this is one small victory that human rights activists must cherish,” said Neuer.
The Arab, Islamic and African blocs demanded that the UN Human Rights Council cancel its plans to webcast its review of countries’ human rights records.
“As per the existing practice of the Council and the Commission on Human Rights,” they wrote in an April 3, 2008 set of demands circulated today, “only the Plenary meetings are webcast. There should be no exception. The Institution-Building text [the June 2007 rules] does not provide for webcasting of the Working Group proceedings.”
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