Canada’s Steven Lewis recently called for the UN to create a new agency to promote the cause of women. Currently a special UN envoy to combat AIDS/HIV in Africa, and a former Canadian Ambassador to the world body, Lewis laments that the UN has “agencies for everything from children, to health, to food, to education.” But, he adds, “We do not have a UN agency to represent, assist and liberate, and enhance the lives of more than half the world’s people.” Austin Ruse, president of the New York-based UN watchdog group C-FAM, noted that numerous existing UN agencies are already promoting “radical feminism” and that the newly proposed group would therefore be “a remarkable redundancy.”
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 10:22 PM EDT
No Comments »
Celebrating and Defending Liberty
By Alan Caruba
Sometimes I fear America has become the Paris Hilton of the world, forever in the media, an incredibly wealthy, pretty creature that often appears to be vacuous, in need of an occasional spanking, and yet fascinating for reasons that defy an easy explanation. Whatever the nation does, however, it does from a set of values and a cultural heritage that sets it apart from every other nation on earth.
These values of freedom and individual liberty need to be taught in our schools, spoken of around the dinner table, and in all the institutions of the nation as a constant reminder why America is such an economic dynamo, a source of endless innovation, and a place where one can literally travel from coast to coast and consistently be greeted with courtesy and warmth by complete strangers.
Writers are, by nature, people who love the written word and turn to it for answers. Let’s look at some thoughts that celebrate freedom and liberty in a world where it exists only for a lucky few of the six billion people who share our planet.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 8:37 PM EDT
1 Comment »
by Carey Roberts
Wondering about all the backpack-toting, hairy-legged women ambling around New York City this week? They’re the delegates to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
Don’t expect to hear about random acts of kindness from this bunch. These women care about only one thing – freeing the planet from the baleful influence of patriarchy.
The word "patriarchy," of course, simply refers to male leadership. History shows that patriarchs have spared women from the dirtiest, harshest, and most hazardous lines of work. That’s part of the reason why in almost every country, men have shorter lifespans than women. [www.renewamerica.us/analyses/050312roberts.htm]
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 11:08 PM EST
No Comments »
Geneva, Dec. 2006 – In the final day of its third regular session, the UN Human Rights Council condemned Israel twice, bringing its total number of resolutions against the Jewish state, in its six months of existence, to eight. Israel is the only country in the world that the Council has condemned for human rights violations since it was inaugurated in June. Today’s censures were the only Council resolutions from this session that addressed a specific country.
The two texts deal with “follow up” to two earlier Council resolutions pronouncing Israel guilty of human rights violations in Gaza and in Lebanon without mentioning the actions or violations of Hamas or Hezbollah, which were widely criticized by Western states and human rights organizations as one-sided. Both of today’s resolutions mandate additional reporting on and scrutiny of Israel’s conduct when the Council meets again in March.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights, Middle East at 2:08 AM EST
No Comments »
Geneva, Nov. 15, 2006 – On the same day that Palestinian rockets fired from Northern Gaza killed one Israeli civilian and injured another, the UN Human Rights Council met in special session today to condemn Israel for defending itself against such attacks.
The session was requested by the Council’s Arab and Islamic members, who also drafted the one-sided resolution that ultimately was passed. That resolution, adopted by a vote of 32 in favor, 8 opposed, and 6 abstaining, condemns Israel for the “willful killing" of Palestinian civilians, yet completely ignores the willful killing of Israeli civilians by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or any other Palestinian group. The no votes were from Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom. France, Guatemala, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, and Ukraine abstained.
"Today's resolution entirely ignores the systematic Palestinian firing of Kassam rockets from Gaza into Israel, which this morning killed 57-year-old Fatima Slutzker, a resident of Sderot, as she was crossing the street with her husband," said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, in a speech before the Council plenary. "Another victim lost both his legs in the barrage. Yet none of this is mentioned anywhere in the resolution. Its inflammatory language against Israel will embolden extremists in the region and give moral support to the Hamas government’s recent promise to send more suicide bombers to attack Israel."
This is the third special session that the Council has held in its five months of existence. The first two, in July and August, also were called by the Council's Arab and Islamic members to denounce Israel. Both also resulted in one-sided, Arab- and Islamic-group drafted resolutions being passed over the objections of the Council’s Western democracies.
"Today’s exercise has nothing to do with the legitimate scrutiny of Israeli actions or the legitimate concern for human rights in the Palestinian territories, Israel or anywhere else—all of which the Council is perfectly entitled to act upon," said Neuer. "Rather, for the third time in less than five months, the proper work of the newly formed Council—building its mechanisms—has been interrupted for a political campaign that seeks to demonize Israel at all costs."
The Council also has held two regular sessions, in June and in September. These sessions resulted in only one condemnatory resolution being adopted against any country in the entire world: Israel. That resolution, again drafted by the Arab and Islamic groups, also was opposed by the Council’s Western democracies.
"As of today, the Council has now held more special sessions to denounce Israel than it has held regular sessions concerning everything else in the world," said Neuer. "And at its regular sessions, it adopted only one resolution against a specific country, denouncing Israel alone among all 192 UN member states–—making that session, in practice and in effect, yet another special session to denounce Israel."
"Meanwhile, the Council has not had a special session or passed a resolution on, for example, the grave human rights abuses that have long been occurring in Darfur, Sudan and now are spreading into Chad," continued Neuer. According to today's New York Times, over the past ten days, hundreds of Chadian civilians have been killed by Arab militias along the Chad-Sudan border.
For more information on the Council's first regular and first and second special sessions, see our September Report, "Reform or Regression?"
Full text of UN Watch Speech to the Council
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights, Middle East at 12:32 PM EST
No Comments »
Geneva —Following is a statement released in Geneva last week by UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer:
The statement today by John Dugard, UN Special Rapporteur on the Palestinian territories, is one-sided and further undermines the credibility of the Human Rights Council as well as the effectiveness of the UN as a whole to mediate peace between all sides of the conflict.
Mr. Dugard refers to June 2006 yet shockingly omits any mention of that month's Hamas raid into Israel and kidnapping of Corporal Gilad Shalit that provoked the crisis. Moreover, his statement further omits mention of the thousands of Kassam rockets that—on a daily basis over the past year—have been indiscriminately fired by Hamas and other terrorist groups from Gaza into Israeli towns and villages, wreaking death, injury and havoc upon innocent civilians.
Nor does he say a word about the alarming increase of illegal smuggling into Gaza of sophisticated missiles and other weaponry. Following Hezbollah's example, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups are seeking to build an advanced arsenal to continue attacking Israeli civilians from the very territory transferred into their hands by Israel last year.
Finally, Mr. Dugard's claim that Israeli actions in Gaza have gone "unnoticed" by the UN is bizarre. In fact, the UN Human Rights Council has, since its June inauguration, devoted every single one of its country-specific resolutions to condemnation of Israel—including two resolutions, a Special Session and a "fact-finding mission" all expressly addressing the issue of Gaza, and all focusing on Israeli actions alone while ignoring those of Hamas.
Mr. Dugard ought to be encouraging the Palestinian authorities in Gaza to use the freedom acquired last year to build hospitals and schools, instead of missiles and arms-smuggling tunnels, and to teach Gaza's children mutual respect and tolerance instead of hatred and the veneration of Jihad and suicide bombing.
Regrettably, Mr. Dugard's actions are inconsistent with his obligations as a UN expert to be impartial and objective.
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 12:44 AM EST
No Comments »
"Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize" is an oxymoron, especially when its founder is the UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the right to food.
Geneva —UN Watch called on Jean Ziegler, the UN hunger expert scheduled to address the General Assembly this afternoon, to resign from his position as vice-president of the "Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize" organization. The Geneva-based non-governmental organization said that Mr. Ziegler's political and financial ties to a dictator associated with torture and other abuses jeopardized the credibility of his mandate as the UN Human Rights Council's Special Rapporteur on the right to food.
The Khaddafi Prize, established by the Libyan dictator with Mr. Ziegler's help in 1989, has been awarded to several individuals accused of racism and anti-Semitism, including Louis Farrakhan and Mahathir Mohammed, as well as convicted Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy. Other winners of the award include anti-Western leaders such as Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, and organizations who lobbied at the UN against the sanctions imposed on Libya after its agents bombed Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. According to Libya's state-controlled news agency, Mr. Ziegler himself won the award in 2002, in the same year as Garaudy. Awardees have received two-hundred thousand dollars or more.
As recently documented by UN Watch and reported in a front page exposé in the leading Swiss newspaper Neue Zurcher Zeitung, Mr. Ziegler is vice-president of a group of interconnected organizations in Geneva known as "Nord-Sud XXI" that manage and award the Khaddafi Prize. Government records, UN documents and international news sources show that, despite recent denials by Mr. Ziegler, he played a leading role in founding the Khaddafi Prize, has maintained an ongoing relationship with the Prize organization, and himself won—but did not disclose his connections to—the Prize in 2002.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 7:20 AM EST
No Comments »
Geneva, Nov. 2, 2006 —UN Watch expressed concern that an individual credibly accused of incest and child abuse is a candidate in this Sunday's ballot for Nicaragua's next president. The Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization said that the election of former president Daniel Ortega—whose own colleagues substantiated accusations that he sexually abused his stepdaughter when she was a child—could send a negative message and prejudice international efforts to protect children. UN Watch is part of a coalition of non-governmental organizations that has been outspoken at the UN Human Rights Council against the sexual exploitation of children.
In 1998, at the age of thirty, Zoilamérica Narvaez publicly revealed her story of sustained sexual molestation, abuse and rape by her stepfather, starting when she was only eleven. "Veteran Sandinistas [...] said they knew about Ortega's abuse of her all along," reported the New York Times (August 23, 1998), while Alejandro Bendana, Ortega's former envoy to the UN who married Narvaez in 1990, publicly confessed his shame in failing to confront the continued abuse by his boss. Time Magazine (March 23, 1998) reported that "[t]hroughout much of the 1980s, many loyalists of the Marxist-oriented Sandinista Party suspected that Daniel Ortega Saavedra, their dour leader and the country's President from 1979 to 1990, was sexually molesting his adolescent stepdaughter Zoilamerica Narvaez Murillo." Mr. Narvaez's harrowing testimony of the abuse is detailed here. (Spanish version.)
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 7:36 AM EST
No Comments »
“Women’s rights” committee obsessed with abortion but silent on child sexual abuse
Washington, D.C. –– A United Nations (U.N.) committee on women’s rights sent a belligerent letter to Nicaraguan politicians prior to their historic vote last week to ban abortion. Yet these U.N. officials have been virtually silent on the well-corroborated case of a powerful Sandinista leader and former president accused of sexually molesting his stepdaughter.
“Nicaraguans held a massive rally – 200,000 strong, led and filled by women – in support of an abortion ban,” said Wendy Wright, President of Concerned Women for America (CWA). “Yet radical feminists and U.N. officials tried to bully Nicaraguan leaders into cancelling the vote. This extraordinary interference contrasts sharply with their silence and utter failure to help seek justice for Zoilamerica Navaez, the stepdaughter of one of the most famous Nicaraguan politicians and Sandinista leader.
“Clearly U.N. agents are abusing their position to force their ideology on democratic societies, even when the women of those societies vehemently oppose it. U.N. interference in this free vote of a sovereign nation stands in stark contrast from their lack of interest in a serious case of child sexual abuse by a powerful politician in the same country. Have they ignored Zoilamerica’s case because it accuses a socialist dictator with whom radical feminists in Nicaragua have aligned?”
Beverly LaHaye, Chairman of Concerned Women for America, stated, “Nicaraguans have suffered enough under leaders who abuse their positions in power. The prejudice against Christian leaders and demand to kill innocent unborn children promoted by these UN agents is too close to what Nicaraguans have endured in the past under abusive leaders, when innocent people were slaughtered and Christian leaders persecuted, even killed in their churches. Nicaraguans should not feel they must subject themselves or their children to anyone who would destroy innocent human beings to gain power for themselves.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights at 12:57 AM EST
No Comments »
Geneva – Last month, UN Watch today called on UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to denounce the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran for sending Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, who is implicated in grave human rights violations, as its representative to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees’ Tripartite Commission in Geneva, Switzerland. "Mr. Pour-Mohammadi is credibly believed to have been involved in the murders of thousands of political prisoners, writers, and dissidents in Iran," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization. "This man does not deserve to be toasted at Geneva cocktails with diplomats and high UN officials — he belongs in jail."
This is not the first time that Iran has shown contempt for a UN body in Geneva by sending a notorious human rights abuser to participate on its behalf. In June, Iran's delegation to the inaugural session of the new UN Human Rights Council included Tehran Prosecutor General Saeed Mortazavi, who stands accused of the 2005 torture and murder of Iranian-Canadian journalist Zarah Khazemi. (For more information on Ms. Khazemi's murder, click here.) The incident made international headlines and the government of Canada demanded Mr. Mortazavi's arrest, but he managed to leave Europe without incident.
"The Ahmadinejad government's policy of brazenly sending human rights criminals to major UN human rights and humanitarian assemblies is yet another example of Tehran's complete contempt for the standards and values of the international community," said Neuer. "It only underscores the compelling need for the United Nations to protect its basic Charter principles by resorting to a strong remedy: suspension or expulsion of Ahmadinejad's Iran." (To read about UN Watch's campaign to urge the Security Council and General Assembly to rescind Iran's UN membership, click here.)
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.
Posted by Walt as Corruption, Freedom & Human Rights, Middle East at 11:05 PM EST
No Comments »
