On September 22, 2011, at the opening of the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly, dissidents and human rights activists gathered at the We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution adopted the Declaration of Dissidents for Universal Human Rights. The appeal calls for the removal of China, Cuba, Iran, Russia and Saudi Arabia from their posts on the UN Human Rights Council and the UN Commission on the Status of Women. It also proposes UN General Assembly resolutions for the human rights situations in Pakistan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
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Archive for September, 2011
Canadian cabinet ministers have delivered two powerful speeches at the UN this week, raising the maple leaf as a banner of moral clarity within the world body. Here is today’s UNGA address by Foreign Minister John Baird. This is Immigration Minister Jason Kenney’s speech in protest of the UN’s “Durban III” meeting on racism.
Yoani Sanchez, the Cuban dissident and world-renowned blogger, called on the phone from Havana today to address the We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution:
Fortunately for me and many Cubans, technology has permitted us to project our voice both inside and outside the island, to be able to reach those places where our government does not permit us to travel.
But the path to end the censorship and the state monopoly over information is still a very long one for us. Precisely on that topic I want to speak to you today — of the personal civic drama that signifies not being able to significantly access the new technologies and especially the internet.
We are a nation locked in the 20th century; we are still unable today to navigate in cyberspace. We need to pass through an ideological filter, or pay a very high price that is inaccessible for our salaries. Only the very reliable functionaries, the foreigners in our country, or the communicators from our official sector, can have access to internet from their homes. The rest of the Cuban citizens are condemned to an information blockade.
And for that reason, today, at this forum, I want to denounce the crimes against connectivity that the Cubans are suffering, in not permitting us to gain access to other information…the citizens of this country are being victimized by a crime against journalism and mafia.
It is a violation of our rights to be denied knowledge of what happens outside and inside of our national frontiers. Nevertheless, despite these restrictions, human rights activists, non-conformist citizens, and non-conformist artists are finding the way to express and spread their voice.
The magnificent tool of blogs and Twitter have served us as a substitute to the free press that we do not have. From the small country in the east of the country, from the places where no one has ever seen a computer connected to the internet, through cell phones, Cubans are able to tell our story. Messages going out through Twitter are like an SOS, a call for help that is able to leap over the wall of control.
Technology has protected us. We have avoided in many cases that the repression would be excessively harsh with us. Each minute that passes that we Cubans are not permitted the massive access to the technologies, are years and years that we remain behind professionally and as citizens.
International community: please, pressure Cuba, so we could feel like individuals of this millennium, and interact with the citizens of the world on an equal basis. To get information today is to get democracy for tomorrow.
- Vivid hi-res photos from today’s We Have A Dream: Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution.
- Compelling videos are here.
- Blog summary is here.
- Live Tweets
NEW YORK, September 21, 2011 — An international coalition of NGOs, human rights activists, and political dissidents met in New York this morning for the first session of the Global Summit against Discrimination and Persecution.
Held in parallel to the United Nations’ 65th session, the summit features former political prisoners from China, Iran, and the Sudan. Other speakers come from Cuba, Uganda, Vietnam, and Burma, all sharing stories of persecution and perseverance. The event gives platform to their continuing struggle for freedom while governments from around the world meet nearby at the United Nations General Assembly. Continue reading ‘Human Rights activists gather in New York for global summit on discrimination’
UN Watch Testimony to UN Human Rights Council, Agenda Item 3, delivered by Alexia Bedat, 15 September 2011
Thank you, Madam President.
Under Articles 2, 5 and 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, women are guaranteed equal treatment under the law and protection from degrading treatment. Today we ask: Is this promise being translated into practice?
To find the answer, we must see reality from the perspective of real women on the ground. Let us consider three concrete examples:
1. China. According to a panel of experts including US Congressman Chris Smith, as a result of the “One child policy,” every 2.4 seconds a woman in China undergoes a forced abortion. Xiao Ai Ying is one of these women. Last year, eight months into her pregnancy, twelve government officials broke into her home, brutally kicked her in the stomach and dragged her screaming to the hospital. Madam President, isn’t China a member of this Council, and therefore pledged to the highest standards of human rights? Continue reading ‘Rights of Women in China, Saudi Arabia and Iran’
Ms. Navanethem Pillay
UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights
Palais des Nations
1211 Geneva 10
September 15, 2011
Dear Madam High Commissioner,
We write to strongly protest the UN’s unprecedented decision to exclude UN Watch, an ECOSOC-accredited non-governmental organization, from next Thursday’s high-level meeting to commemorate the Durban Declaration. The rejection of our application was carried out without any notice or semblance of due process, and is an act of discrimination. We appeal to you, as the leading figure of the UN’s anti-racism effort, to speak out against this deplorable decision and to demand that it be immediately reversed. Continue reading ‘UN Watch barred from monitoring UN Durban III “anti-racism” meeting’
NEW YORK, September 17, 2011 – A coalition of human rights NGOs will hold a major summit in New York on September 21-22, 2011 to impress upon world leaders gathering for the UN General Assembly that “human rights are universal.”
We Have A Dream: The Global Summit Against Discrimination and Persecution will be held next to UN Headquarters in New York at the same time as the 66th Session of the UN General Assembly and the 10th anniversary commemoration of the UN’s Durban conference on racism, discrimination and xenophobia. Continue reading ‘Global rights summit to unite activists in demand for UN action this week against worst abusers’
It’s time now for the UN Human Rights Council to apologize for its laughably one-sided investigation into Israel’s May 2010 flotilla clash.
Recall that in September 2010, commission chair Desmond de Silva castigated UN Watch for daring to challenge his report’s failure to consider key facts, and famously declared: “Even if Bin Laden himself were on the Mavi Maramara, Israel’s blockade would still be illegal.”
Completely wrong, says a separate UN commission appointed by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Read full report here. Headed by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the former prime minister of New Zealand, the new commission of inquiry finds that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is lawful.
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