Geneva, January 29, 2007 — A coalition of leading human rights groups from around the world today called on UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour to rebuke Iran for its campaign of Holocaust denial, on the day the UN marks the genocide of Europe’s Jews with ceremonies in New York and Geneva. The letter urged Arbour to strongly condemn Tehran’s fundamentalist regime every time it dismisses the Holocaust as “a myth.” The 40 signatories include Human Rights First, Freedom House, the Democracy Coalition Project, the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre, and the World Federation of Methodist and Uniting Church Women.
According to Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch, Iran’s latest questioning of the Holocaust—in a January 8th letter to the Human Rights Council that was circulated as an official UN document—requires a response from High Commissioner Arbour. “Since Ahmadinejad’s odious remarks began in September 2005, important statements were issued by both Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon,” said Neuer. “But denial of genocide is a fundamental assault on human rights, and so it’s vital for Madame Arbour to finally speak out as well.”
The text of the letter follows below.
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Posted by Walt as Middle East at 1:20 AM EST
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by Jim Kouri, CPP
United Nations Undersecretary General Benon Sevan of Cyprus and Ephraim Nadler, a/k/a "Fred Nadler" of New York City were indicted on charges of bribery and conspiracy to commit wire fraud, in connection with the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program.
From mid-2000 until March 2003, the Iraqi government’s regime conditioned the right to purchase oil under the Oil-for-Food Program on a purchaser's willingness to pay a secret surcharge to Iraq. These secret payments were illegal kickbacks, made in violation of United Nations sanctions and United States criminal law.
Nadler allegedly participated in a scheme to make unlawful payments to the former government of Iraq in connection with the purchase of oil under the Oil-for-Food Program. Sevan, who at the time was the Executive Director of the United Nations Office of Iraq Program (the Office that operated the Oil-for-Food Program), as well as being the UN's Undersecretary General, allegedly received almost $160,000 — money generated from the sale of Iraqi oil under the Program — from Nadler on behalf of Saddam Hussein's government in Iraq.
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Posted by Walt as Corruption, Middle East at 10:55 PM EST
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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.
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Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights, Middle East at 2:08 AM EST
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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
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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
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Geneva – UN Watch has 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 1:07 AM EDT
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Geneva, September 29, 2006 — This afternoon in Geneva the UN Human Rights Council will return to condemnations of Israel, with the presentation of new reports as mandated by prior resolutions that were criticized as one-sided by Western democracies and human rights groups. "Sadly, the constructive part of this Council session—reports by the Council's 40 independent monitors on human rights situations around the world—is now over," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a non-governmental organization in Geneva that monitors the Council. "Anyone observing the Council's agenda over the next week might easily mistake it for a meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Conference."
The resolutions on the agenda for today's follow-up are the only measures adopted by the Council that address violations by a specific country. All three were sponsored by the Council's Arab and Islamic groups over the summer, and opposed as one-sided by Western democracies and major human rights organizations. All three require reports condemning alleged Israeli violations in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, yet omit any reference to attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah.
The reports concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Gaza will be presented by the Council's Special Rapporteur on Palestine, Mr. John Dugard (who already presented his regular annual report on Israeli violations in the Territories on Tuesday). His mandate, sponsored by Arab and Muslim countries, has been criticized for its exclusive focus on Israeli violations only.
The report on Lebanon will be an update on the progress of a three-person inquiry commission that is now visiting Lebanon, mandated only to examine alleged Israeli violations. When the resolution establishing the inquiry was adopted by the Council's emergency session in August, Amnesty International criticized it as "a highly-politicized resolution that muted the Council's voice by ignoring the violations of one party to the conflict" and that "failed to meet the principles of impartiality and objectivity expected," saying it was the product of "members' focus on their narrow political objectives." Human Rights Watch said that the resolution's "one-sided approach" was "a blow to [the Council's] credibility and an abdication of its responsibility to protect human rights for all." Reporters Sans Frontières "condemn[ed] this use of the Council for political ends" and said that the Council, so far, had been "a repeat of the worst moments of the defunct Human Rights Commission . . . , with an automatic, blocking majority imposing its will and doing as it pleases," that is, "exploiting human rights for political ends."
Secretary-General Annan, speaking at a September 13 press conference prior to the current Council session, urged the new body to "focus on respect for human rights throughout the world, without focusing merely on individual countries. It should be fair, and apply the rules consistently across the board." Similarly, prior to the Council's inauguration in June, he pleaded with the Council to "move away from some of the past practices that we have all criticized," saying he hoped "we are not going to see a situation where the Human Rights Council focuses on Israel, but not on the others."
UN Watch and a coalition of NGOs on Tuesday will present the Council with a broad list of compelling violations, in countries around the world, that require Council action. See list of countries here.
"It's an outrage that a body meant to protect victims worldwide has allowed itself to be taken hostage by the UN's anti-Israel lobby, devoting 100 percent of its country resolutions to one-sided attacks against the Jewish state," said Neuer. "The measures pushed through by the Arab and Islamic groups, with the support of an automatic majority, abuse the language of human rights for the political purpose of demonizing Israel."
For more information on the Council, see UN Watch's recent report, "Reform or Regression?"
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 12:22 AM EDT
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The liberal media and politicians have created many myths about the United Nations, which are taken for granted by the misinformed. The following list of common myths are addressed in detail on the Jewish Virtual Library web site.
- The United Nations plays a constructive role in Middle East affairs. Its record of fairness and balance makes it an ideal forum for settling the Arab-Israeli dispute.
- The Palestinians have been denied a voice at the UN.
- Israel enjoys the same rights as any other member of the United Nations.
- The United Nations and its affiliate institutions are critical of Israeli policies, but never attack Jews or engage in anti-Semitic rhetoric.
- The Arab states approved the 1991 repeal of the resolution libeling Zionism.
- Even if the General Assembly is biased, the Security Council has always been balanced in its treatment of the Middle East.
- The United States always supports Israel and vetoes critical resolutions.
- America's Arab allies routinely support U.S. positions at the UN.
- Israel's failure to implement UN resolutions is a violation of international law.
- The United Nations has demonstrated equal concern for the lives of Israelis and Palestinians.
Posted by Walt as Middle East at 9:31 AM EDT
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The UN's spineless leader, Kofi Annan, has all of the sudden taken a soft stance on the Iranian nuclear issue and is back peddling in Ahmadinejad's court.
Kofi Annan, sporting his pacifist/humanist goggles, declared from Tehran Sunday that the Iranian nuclear crisis could be easily solved in a diplomatic manner if the West would just show a little patience.
The lack of Western patience, not Iranian defiance, is the problem. Right. How in the world is sitting around twiddling our thumbs going to suddenly cause the Iranians to realize they don’t want nuclear weapons? (Zionist.com)
It is very obvious who side the UN is on. It is certainly not the side of western freedom. The UN will not even stand up to the interests of the Western world.
Posted by Walt as Middle East, Terrorism at 9:12 AM EDT
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What about Hezbollah's anti-personal rockets that were fired on Israeli citizens?
The UN's Human Rights Council recently voted to investigate allegations of "systematic targeting and killings of civilians" by Israel in their recent war with Hezbollah terrorists. Most of the nations voting for the investigation were Muslin Nations and Russia. Most of the western nations voted no to the investigation. The United States is no longer a member of the Human Rights Council.
What about the Hezbollah rockets with anti-personal flack that were fired indiscriminately into civilian population centers? You can see for yourself an excellent power point presentation on TampaBayOnline.org. There are close up pictures of the Hezbollah rockets damage, including the perforation of cars and walls with the evidence of thousand of ball bearing shrapnel.
Twenty-seven states on the council — including Russia, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — voted on Aug. 11 in favour of the probe, which was proposed last month by the countries of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League.
Canada joined the United Kingdom, Germany and nine other countries in voting against the call for the probe, while eight nations abstained.
Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, called the convening of the special session "one-sided" and reiterated his criticism from last month, when he said it was "painful" that the council has made a distinction between suffering and deaths occurring in different countries. (CBC.ca)
The UN's Human Rights Council is either blind or enabling the destruction of Israel by their Muslim enemies.
Posted by Walt as Freedom & Human Rights, Middle East, War & Peace at 8:11 AM EDT
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