March 2007
From Breakthrough to Backlash: Neuer Delivers “Banned Speech”
Hillel Neuer took the floor at the 4th regular session of the UN Human Rights Council offering a scathing assessment of the Council’s performance in addressing human rights crises in around the world.
Mr. Neuer highlights the obscure amounts of resolutions enacted condemning Israel, granting Hamas and Hizbollah (recognised terrorist organisations) impunity, while ‘millions upon millions of victims in 191 countries continue to go ignored’. He specifically emphasises the hypocrisy in the positions on human rights held by the ‘Middle East dictators’, ‘racist murders of Darfur women’, ‘Tibet occupiers’, ‘butchers of Muslims in Chechnya’ and the Palestinian leadership itself (which was on the brink of civil war at the time).
Mr. Neuer asked: “Why has this Council chosen silence?” to which the chairman responded by castigating him, ruling the speech ‘inadmissible’ and threatening to strike it from the records and to ban it from being presented again.
The exchange has since gone viral on the UN Watch YouTube channel and been reported on in newspapers worldwide:
“A diplomatic moment to remember…” (New York Sun, March 30, 2007); “YouTube’s Top Rated, Most Discussed, Most Linked, Most Viewed Video of the Week…” (March 2007); “Bloggers cheer. . . a stunning rebuke of the U.N. Human Rights Council” (Slate.com); “Council President Luis Alfonso de Alba ruled the remarks inadmissible. . . in the depths of the U.N., this was of course logical: Mr. Neuer’s commentary had been accurate…” (The Wall Street Journal).
