Archive for August, 2009

U.N. Goldstone inquiry rejects ‘so-called petition of UN Watch’; denies mission is quasi-judicial

Published by
UN Watch
- at August 30, 2009 in Goldstone "Fact Finding" Mission for UNHRC. 0 Comments

Following  is the August 25, 2009 statement sent by the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict to The Jewish Chronicle of London, in response to UN Watch’s legal brief demanding the disqualification of Christine Chinkin:

“The allegation by UN Watch that Professor Christine Chinkin is disqualified from being a member of the UN Fact Finding Mission is based solely on the contents of a public letter published on 11 January 2009 in the London Sunday Times. The letter condemns in clear terms the firing of rockets by Hamas and suicide bombings. It also states that the military attacks by Israel were unlawful and contrary to the provisions of international law and, in particular, the Charter of the United Nations. More specifically, the signatories to the letter state that the response by Israel was not commensurate with the deaths caused by the Hamas rocket fire. A copy of the letter is attached. Continue reading ‘U.N. Goldstone inquiry rejects ‘so-called petition of UN Watch’; denies mission is quasi-judicial’

Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth: Ends Justify the Means?

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 27, 2009 in Goldstone "Fact Finding" Mission for UNHRC. 1 Comment

As he did in May, Human Rights Watch’s Kenneth Roth is once again advocating for the indefensible UN Human Rights Council “fact-finding” mission on Gaza, in a Jerusalem Post op-ed, without properly informing readers that its head, Judge Richard Goldstone, was until recently a board member of his organization as well as an active defender of its controversial statements on Israel. Last time, this affiliation was carefully buried at the end amid a jumble of others; this time it’s not even mentioned. Continue reading ‘Human Rights Watch’s Ken Roth: Ends Justify the Means?’

U.N. staff broke rules for Gaza demo

Published by
UN Watch
- at August 24, 2009 in Advisory Committee of UNHRC, Halima Warzazi, Jean Ziegler and Judge Richard Goldstone. 0 Comments

The upcoming publication of the UN’s Goldstone “fact-finding” mission on Gaza calls to mind events that occurred at the headquarters of the Human Rights Council during the January war.

Certain members of the UN staff union in Geneva were so worked up by Israel’s military operation that they flouted UN rules by organizing their own demonstration, and issued a statement supporting the biased Human Rights Council resolution that was opposed by the European Union, Canada and other democracies. Click for flyer

No such efforts were ever made by the union during the previous 8 years when Hamas fired thousands of rocket against Israeli civilians. Nor have they ever done such a demonstration for anyone else in the world. 

It’s just a reminder that whenever things heat up in the Middle East, the UN explodes in efforts to condemn Israel. Even after dozens of UN institutions, agencies and officials with some ostensibly relevant mandate issue their condemnations, dozens more emerge that have no relevant mandate, or which are expressly barred from making political statements.

It’s what happened in 2006 during the Lebanon war, when the now-defunct sub-commission on human rights censured Israel — even while admitting that they were prevented by their rules from criticizing any countries — for its “massive denial and violation of human rights in Lebanon.”  Not only did the statement pointedly ignore Hizbollah’s role in attacking Israel and violating the human rights of Israeli civilians, but it blatantly violated the sub-commission’s legal mandate. 

The sub-commission has today been replaced by the Advisory Committee, whose chair is Halima Warzazi, and vice-chair Jean Ziegler. The former was an apologist for Saddam’s gassing of Kurds, the latter for Qaddafi’s attack on Lockerbie.

LSE Law Professor Urged to Step Down from U.N Gaza Inquiry over Bias

Published by
UN Watch
- at August 20, 2009 in Goldstone "Fact Finding" Mission for UNHRC. 0 Comments

GENEVA, August 20, 2009 - The U.N. fact-finding mission into alleged violations in the recent Gaza conflict is being asked to disqualify London School of Economics law professor Christine Chinkin, over prior statements she made “categorically rejecting” Israel’s right to self-defence against Hamas rocket attacks, and accusing Israel of “aggression” and “prima facie war crimes.” A 28-page legal brief was filed today by the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

“International law and the rules of due process require fact-finders in the human rights field to be impartial,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch and an international lawyer, “and that means being free of any commitment to a preconceived outcome.” Continue reading ‘LSE Law Professor Urged to Step Down from U.N Gaza Inquiry over Bias’

The double-talk of Sri Lanka’s U.N. ambassador

Published by
UN Watch
- at August 18, 2009 in Middle East and Sri Lanka. 0 Comments

After he successfully blocked a war-crimes probe into the conflict in Sri Lanka, why is the country’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, being recalled? Ambassador Dayan Jayatilleka himself offers two different explanations.

Last month, at the U.N. Conference on the Question of Palestine in Geneva, he blamed Israel. “I’m leaving because of protests Israel made about my speeches [condemning Israel’s military operations in Gaza],” he told the gathering on July 23.

In the same statement, Jayatilleka also urged Palestinians to reconsider focusing their “resistance” operations at “soft targets” — not for reasons of morality or international law, but because to do otherwise “plays into the hands of the international media,” he said. “One photo of a rocket and a Jewish kid hiding in a cellar and you get the whole Holocaust narrative all over again,” he complained.

However, a recent article in The Economist quotes Jayatilleka giving a completely different reason (“Behind the Rajapaksa brothers’ smiles,” Aug. 6). “Mr Jayatilleka’s offence, he believes, was to have advocated regional devolution in a newspaper. ‘I thought I was operating within the bounds of government policy,’ he laments.”

So who’s responsible for Ambassador Jayatilleka’s departure, the Sri Lankans or the Israelis? Did the diplomat known for provocative speeches sacrifice his posting on the scenic shores of Lake Geneva for the noble cause of Palestine, or power-sharing with the Tamil minority?

Depends, it seems, on whom one is talking to.

U.N. announces: Goldstone report to be released in September

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 18, 2009 in Goldstone "Fact Finding" Mission for UNHRC and Human Rights Council (UNHRC). 0 Comments

Folks are asking UN Watch when we’ll see the report of the Goldstone Fact-Finding Mission on Gaza. Answer: “The Goldstone report will be made available next month, prior to the Human Rights Council’s next session, which starts on 14 September,” announced the U.N. recently in New York. Continue reading ‘U.N. announces: Goldstone report to be released in September’

U.N. website’s Freudian slip: “Mideast” = “Palestine”

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 18, 2009 in Middle East and U.N. Palestinian committees. 0 Comments

The home page of the U.N.’s news center displays focus sections on a handful of regions, one of which is the Middle East.

There one might expect to find special features on the brutal beatings, arrests, and show trials now occurring in Iran, reports about women subjugated in Saudi Arabia, and statements about bloggers and other dissidents arrested and jailed in Egypt and Syria.

Guess again: the “Middle East” section, it turns out, is all about Israel — with an endless stream of U.N. reports, resolutions and feature stories about Palestinian suffering from the evil Israelis. Under “Resolutions/Reports,” for example, there are numerous links to the webpage run by the Division for Palestinian Rights, a derivative of the U.N. General Assembly package, adopted on November 10, 1975, that gave the world the “Zionism is Racism” resolution. Continue reading ‘U.N. website’s Freudian slip: “Mideast” = “Palestine”’

Ziegler denies friendship with Qaddafi but heading to Libya to celebrate coup anniversary

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 14, 2009 in Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and Jean Ziegler. 0 Comments

The Geneva lawyer of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi, Charles Poncet, says that Switzerland should have chosen Jean Ziegler, the recently-elected vice-chair of the UN Human Rights Council’s Advisory Committee, to resolve the year-long diplomatic crisis that has Libya still holding two Swiss citizens as hostages.

In response to the arrest of the dictator’s son in Geneva last July, Libya also pulled out billions in Swiss bank deposits and halted oil exports that previously amounted to more than half of all crude going into Switzerland. Qaddafi has recently been giving speeches at various international summits calling for the dismantling of Switzerland, which he calls a terrorist state for its alleged harboring of Al Qaeda cash.

Poncet said that Ziegler is a close and long-time friend of Qaddafi, going back 35-40 years. UN Watch has documented in detail Ziegler’s Libyan connections, such as his 1989 co-founding of the Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, awarded in 2002 to Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, and to Ziegler himself.

Ziegler denied today that he has “any links of friendship or complicity” with Qaddafi, but says he is rather “regularly received by him as a sociologist.” Ziegler also said that he is off to the Libyan capital on September 1st on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of Qaddafi’s coup d’etat.

Lantos widow on Robinson medal and Durban lessons

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 12, 2009 in Anti-Semitism, High Commissioner of Human Rights, Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and Mary Robinson. 0 Comments

As reported by the JTA, Annette Lantos, widow of the late congressman Tom Lantos, is “deeply disappointed by the decision to honor former [U.N. Human Rights High] Commissioner [Mary] Robinson” but also feels that “this provides a good opportunity to reflect on the failures of Durban.” Her full statement:
Continue reading ‘Lantos widow on Robinson medal and Durban lessons’

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson?

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 10, 2009 in High Commissioner of Human Rights, Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Mary Robinson and Muammar Qaddafi Human Rights Prize. 1 Comment

Following is an open letter by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer to Mrs. Mary Robinson, former U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and Secretary-General of the 2001 Durban conference, who is set to receive the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom this week.

Letter to Mrs. Mary Robinson

Dear Mrs. Robinson,

Recent statements by you and your defenders, amid the growing opposition to your receipt this Wednesday of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, require a response.

According to the organization Physicians for Human Rights — for whom you recently worked on a report together with one of its board members, Richard Goldstone-you are being “vilified” by “false accusations.”

In your own words, “certain elements” of the Jewish community –  those opposed to your selection — are subjecting you to “bullying.”

Mrs. Robinson, let’s be honest: no one has bullied you, and you are not being vilified by false accusations. Continue reading ‘What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson?’

Qaddafi’s man at the U.N., Mary Robinson’s legacy-hire, reelected as VP

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 6, 2009 in Advisory Committee of UNHRC, Human Rights Council (UNHRC), Jean Ziegler, Libya and Mary Robinson. 0 Comments

Jean Ziegler, Qadaffi’s man at the U.N. Human Rights Council — and a legacy hire of Mary Robinson — was reelected this week as Vice-Chair of its Advisory Committee. Ziegler is a former Socialist politician in Switzerland, the author of numerous books accusing America, capitalism, and the West of being responsible for the world’s ills, and a long-time supporter of dictators such as Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe, and Moammar Qaddafi. Continue reading ‘Qaddafi’s man at the U.N., Mary Robinson’s legacy-hire, reelected as VP’

Mary Robinson’s problematic actions not worthy of award

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 4, 2009 in High Commissioner of Human Rights and Mary Robinson. 2 Comments

Amid the controversy surrounding Mary Robinson’s selection for a presidential award, our previous posting documented her 1997-2002 record as UN rights chief as monitored over time by UN Watch.

The evidence is clear. As described by the late Tom Lantos, throughout the lead-up to the 2001 Durban conference Mary Robinson was part of the problem, not the solution. At preparatory sessions in Tehran and Geneva she consistently justified and encouraged a selective focus on Israel. While she did make statements against anti-Semitic manifestations at the conference itself, these were too little and too late. Robinson may not have been the chief culprit of the Durban debacle, but she is its preeminent symbol.

The problem was not just Durban. UN Watch interacted with Robinson when she was U.N. rights chief in Geneva from 1997 to 2002 and closely monitored her tenure. Though she did speak out aptly in various instances, Robinson consistently displayed one-sided criticism of Israel matched with indifference to Palestinian terrorism.

The U.S. government rightly stood up for principle in April when it opposed any reaffirmation of the flawed 2001 Durban declaration. Whatever her other accomplishments, Robinson’s actions in the Durban process and the bias she displayed throughout her tenure as UN human rights chief were not worthy of this award.

Something About Mary: Durban, and 10 More

Published by
Hillel Neuer
- at August 4, 2009 in High Commissioner of Human Rights, Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and Mary Robinson. 0 Comments

Mary Robinson and the Mark of Durban

Should Mary Robinson be awarded the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom for being an “agent of change”?

In March 2004, we noted that, “Whatever her accomplishments, Mary Robinson’s legacy will be forever entwined with Durban’s racism-turned-racist conference that disgraced the UN.”

Continue reading ‘Something About Mary: Durban, and 10 More’