Ahead of the United Nations’ planned “Durban 25” commemoration on September 28, Hillel Neuer was interviewed by Ben Chertoff of HonestReporting to discuss how the notorious 2001 World Conference Against Racism became a global forum for antisemitism and the demonization of Israel.

Conversation Highlights:

Ben Chertoff: 25 years ago, the U.S. walked out of the World Conference Against Racism. Israel walked with them. What was that conference supposed to be, and what did it become?

Hillel Neuer: This was supposed to be the World Conference Against Racism, held in the new post-apartheid South Africa. And yet what happened really was a travesty. A conference that was supposed to be against racism became a conference that promoted racism. It devolved into a notorious hate fest.

There were thousands of people marching in Durban, South Africa, saying that Zionism is like Nazism. And there were pamphlets being distributed of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the czarist forgery that accuses the Jews of a plot to control the world.  This was happening on the sidelines.

At the main conference itself, Israel was the only country singled out as an alleged perpetrator of racism by listing the Palestinians as the only group under the rubric of victims of racism. The NGO forum, which happened in parallel, accused Israel of words that are familiar today, but were not then, which was genocide and apartheid, crimes against humanity.

So much of the venom and the hate that we’re seeing today can be attributed back to what we saw at an international, so-called anti-racism, so-called human rights conference 25 years ago.

Ben Chertoff: Now, what is astounding is that on September 28th, the UN General Assembly will hold a high-level meeting marking 25 years since Durban. In plain terms, what’s actually going on in that room, and what does it say that this is still being celebrated?

Hillel Neuer: The Durban conference happened in 2001, and the United Nations has a practice of holding follow-up conferences to put new attention on the same issues. In 2009 they held the first follow-up conference, Durban 2. Our organization, UN Watch, played a key role in organizing counter-events. And then Durban 3 was the 10th anniversary in 2011.  Fast-forward to 2021 for the 20th anniversary — that was Durban 4.

On September 28th, I expect that what we’re going to see possibly foreign ministers, but at least ambassadors, gather for a meeting to adopt a declaration reaffirming Durban. So we’re calling on all countries to pull out and have a petition on our website urging all countries to do so.

At the original Durban conference, the U.S. and Israel pulled out. In 2009, 10 countries pulled out. In the third time, there were 15 countries that pulled out. And the last time, five years ago, 38 countries pulled out. So we’re hoping to see the same. We hope that leading democracies who truly care about anti-racism will take a stand against antisemitism.

Ben Chertoff: Since October 7, there has been a global explosion of antisemitism. Has there been any movement in the UN structure to address that?

Hillel Neuer: Not really. On the contrary, I would say the United Nations has been a key driver of global antisemitism. Let’s keep in mind, just a couple of weeks after October 7th, the Secretary-General of the UN effectively gave legitimacy and justification for what Hamas did. That was shameful and it set a tone. You had Navi Pillay, who was head of the Commission of Inquiry targeting Israel, she echoed those terms.

You have the infamous rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, who supports Hamas. On October 7, she was saying it’s just a response to oppression and you have to see it in context. So you have numerous UN figures, especially at the Human Rights Council, condemning Israel. Has the UN done anything to stop antisemitism? No. On the contrary, the UN has been a global purveyor of antisemitism.

When these blood libels go around the world, that Israel is committing genocide or starving the Palestinians, which various UN-tainted agencies have claimed, then immediately Jews are called baby killers. And we’ve seen endless attacks against Jews around the world — in the United States, in the UK, in continental Europe, Canada, Australia — and the UN sadly bears a lot of the blame.

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As the 25th anniversary of the World Conference Against Racism is set to take center stage at the United Nations this month, former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler outlines the historical trajectory and lasting global impact of the 2001 Durban conference.

“I can still hear the chants at Durban… the struggle against apartheid requires a dismantling of Israel.”

The post 25 Years After Durban: Irwin Cotler on the Institutionalization of Antisemitism appeared first on UN Watch.

Ahead of the UN General Assembly’s planned “Durban 25” celebration on September 28, UN Watch and NGO Monitor hosted a special event to remember the notorious hatefest that was the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism, in Durban, South Africa.

NGO Monitor President Prof. Gerald Steinberg addressed the 25-year history since the Durban conference.

UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer discussed the UN’s 1975 “Zionism is racism” resolution and the institutional launch of Israel’s demonization as a “racist” state.

David Harris, Executive Vice Chair of ISGAP and former Chair of UN Watch, detailed U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s decision to withdraw the United States from the conference.

Prof. Dina Porat, chief historian at Yad Vashem, recounted the hostility faced by the Israeli delegation and the NGO Forum’s refusal to acknowledge antisemitism.

Prof. Irwin Cotler analyzed how Durban weaponized human rights language to launder institutional antisemitism under the protective cover of the UN.

Irwin Cotler: “This was going to be the first international human rights conference where anti-racism was going to be the theme. What happened at Durban was truly Orwellian. That was a tipping point for the laundering of antisemitism at the UN. What emerged from Durban was the metastasized, newly legalized antisemitism under the cover of the UN. This singling out of Israel has continued to metastasize since. Durban is the Mein Kampf of today.”

David Harris: “Whereas the 1975 effort on Resolution 3379 (“Zionism is Racism”) was a Soviet-Arab concoction, 2001 and thereafter was much more sophisticated: wrapping its agenda in a mantle of political progressivism, of the language of human right. The basic strategies and tactics employed then in Durban, and honed in the months leading up to Durban, continuing until today with the BDS movement.”

Dina Porat: “I was a member of the Israeli delegation to Durban. Instead of dealing with the burning problem of genuinely confronting racism, which was increasing in Europe after the waves of immigration, Israel and the Jewish people were put on the table. So I went up to the Belgian representative, who was chairing the sessions, and said: ‘Could you tell me what is going on? How did it, with a snap of a finger, turn against us?’

He took me aside, as though explaining something so obvious. He said: ‘Listen, most of the countries that have delegations representing them — from South America, Africa and the Far East, mainly those that were under colonial rule — see racism very differently. They don’t see the problems that we see in Europe today or in North America. They remember, and cannot forget, what happened during colonial times. And what they want to use the conference for is to obtain compensation for what they suffered under colonial rule.’

‘Just imagine,’ he told me, ‘what would happen if Spain had to compensate so many countries in South America, Portugal had to compensate Brazil, and we Belgians had to compensate the Congo. We all know what Belgium robbed from the Congo.’

‘So I tell you frankly: The simple solution to this problem was to pick on Israel and the Jews.’

He said it so simply and so openly that he left me speechless. That was a blunt and exact explanation of what happened at the Durban Conference.”

The post 25 Years After Durban: The Lasting Impact of the UN World Conference against Racism appeared first on UN Watch.

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Twenty-five years after the infamous 2001 Durban Conference, the UN Human Rights Council held a session to celebrate the anniversary. UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer was the only one to challenge the whitewashing of history. Click for video

Highlights:

President of the U.N. Human Rights Council:
We will now begin the high level panel discussion on the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Durban Declaration…

Deputy U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights:
The Durban Declaration and Program of Action is a global blueprint for racial justice…

Belarus:
The Durban Declaration and Program of Action were a milestone.

Angola:
It’s a milestone.

Human Rights Watch:
It’s a moment to celebrate…

Hillel Neuer (UN Watch):
Mr. President, the measure of an event lies not in its aspirations, but in its legacy. Twenty-five years ago, in Durban, the UN convened a World Conference Against Racism. But this mission was betrayed.

It was turned into a conference for racism. In the streets, thousands of radical activists marched against Israel and Jews, some carrying signs praising Adolf Hitler. Jewish students were threatened. The Arab Lawyers Union handed out cartoons of hook-nosed Jews. Copies of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the notorious antisemitic forgery, were openly sold.

At the NGO Forum, Israel was declared a “racist apartheid state,” and accused of “genocide.” In the Durban outcome document, the Jewish state alone was singled out as a perpetrator of racism. Holocaust survivor and Congressman Tom Lantos called it “the most sickening and unabashed display of hate for Jews” he had witnessed since the Nazi era.

Durban was a turning point. Antisemitism was repackaged in the language of human rights. Ancient libels were given new terms: “apartheid,” “racism,” “genocide.” Once embedded in UN discourse, that vocabulary spread to civil society, media, and campuses. The singling out of the world’s only Jewish state—as uniquely evil—became normalized.

Today, we live with the consequences. Jews are attacked in the streets of major cities, targeted in synagogues, harassed on campuses. And when a mandate-holder of this Council publicly amplifies rhetoric describing the Jewish state as “the incarnation of evil” — and is backed by Iran and South Africa — we must ask: Has the lesson of Durban truly been learned?

The post 25 Years After Durban: Antisemitism Repackaged as “Human Rights” appeared first on UN Watch.

Durban IV: September 2021 UN High-Level Meeting

On September 22, 2021, pursuant to a UN General Assembly resolution adopted on December 31, 2020, the United Nations will convene a one-day high-level meeting — at the level of heads of state and government — to mark the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration, which was adopted at the UN’s notorious 2001 World Conference Against Racism, held in Durban, South Africa.

Contrary to its stated purpose, the 2001 Durban Conference was marked by ugly displays of intolerance, antisemitism, and baseless claims against the Jewish state. Israel was singled out in the conference’s concluding declaration, and at the NGO Forum held in parallel. In 2001 and thereafter, the Durban process has been used to promote racism, intolerance, antisemitism and Holocaust denial, and to erode freedom of speech and Israel’s right to exist.

Durban IV will endorse this perversion of the principles of anti-racism. As world leaders gather for the General Assembly’s annual opening, this one-day event plans to adopt a “political declaration” calling for the “full and effective implementation” of the Durban Declaration.

Durban IV will take place on the second day of the UNGA’s 76th session general debate. According to the resolution, the meeting’s official theme will be “Reparations, racial justice and equality for people of African descent”, which is an important topic, but regrettably, the process has been tainted with antisemitism at the 2001 event and its progeny.  According to the resolution, the event will consist of an opening plenary meeting, consecutive round tables and/or thematic panels, and a closing plenary meeting.

Durban I: The 2001 “World  Conference Against Racism”

In 2001, one week before the September 11 terrorist attacks, the UN hosted the “World Conference on Racism, Discrimination, Xenophobia and Intolerance,” in Durban, South Africa. 

Instead of combating racism, however, the conference actually incited it. Durban became the worst international manifestation of antisemitism in the post-war period.

• In preparation of the Durban Declaration, Asian nations met in Tehran in February 2001. Their outcome text demonized Israel, accusing it of committing “a new kind of apartheid,” “a crime against humanity” and “a form of genocide.” 

• This proposed language was at the last minute excised from the Durban Declaration under pressure from members of the European Union, who threatened to follow the US and Israel and pull out of the conference. Nevertheless, the final text targeted Israel as an alleged perpetrator of racism by singling out “the plight of Palestinians under foreign occupation.” 

• Inflammatory speeches against Israel were ubiquitous. PLO chairman Yasser Arafat told conference delegates of the “ugliness” of “Israeli racist policies and practices against the Palestinian people.” Cuban dictator Fidel Castro spoke of “the dreadful genocide perpetrated, at this very moment, against our Palestinian brothers.”

• The UN sponsored a parallel “NGO Forum” where non-governmental organizations formally declared Israel a “racist apartheid state” guilty of “genocide.” 

• In a Palestinian-led march with thousands of participants, one placard read “Hitler Should Have Finished the Job.” Nearby, some were selling the most notorious of anti-Jewish tracts, “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” 

• At the NGO Forum, the Arab Lawyers Union distributed caricatures of Jews with hooked noses, fangs dripping with blood, and clutching money. Jewish human rights activists at Durban were physically intimidated and threatened, with mobs screaming at them: “You don’t belong to the human race!” 

2/ At the NGO Forum, flyers were distributed of Hitler saying, "What if I had won? The good things: There would be NO Israel and NO Palestinian's blood shed – the rest is your guess."

Powerful testimony by Rabbi Abraham Cooper of @simonwiesenthal & Michael Salberg then of @ADL. pic.twitter.com/mJQXCT85y3

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 8, 2020

4/ @AndrewADL_EUR, then head of UN Watch & seen in videos above at Durban, exposed pamphlets—from the Arab Lawyers Union, a backer of Syria's Assad regime—that depicted Jews with fangs dripping with blood & wearing Nazi helmets.https://t.co/SKW81kR64i https://t.co/qfMlr42j5L pic.twitter.com/b0DPPM8dXd

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) September 8, 2020

• Jewish students who came to the conference to promote human rights and equality left Durban traumatized.

Durban II & Durban III

In April 2009, the UN held a follow-up entitled the Durban Review Conference, which became known as Durban II. Before it began, however, 10 countries pulled out: Canada, Israel, Italy, the United States, Germany, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Poland, Australia and New Zealand. 

The representative of Col. Qaddafi’s Libya regime was made chair of the 2007-2009 planning committee. At the conference, on Monday, April 20, 2009, Iranian President Ahmadinejad, the world’s most famous Holocaust denier at the time, was the opening speaker.  “World Zionism personifies racism,” he said. It “falsely resorts to religion and abuses religious sentiments to hide its hatred and ugly face.” After World War II, said Ahmadinejad, “a totally racist government in occupied Palestine” was established, “under the pretext of Jewish suffering.” Diplomats from the remaining EU countries in the conference stood up and walked out in a powerful protest. 

In September 2o11, heads of state gathered at the UN General Assembly to mark the 10th anniversary of the Durban Declaration, which became known as Durban III. Fourteen countries refused to attend: Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Countries Rejecting Durban IV

UN Watch commends the countries below for refusing to participate in any Durban IV events, and calls on other countries to follow. Because UN Watch is fully committed to combating discrimination, intolerance, and bigotry, and to promoting human rights for all, we urge all nations that support human rights to oppose the attempts by dictators and bigots to use the Durban process to hijack this noble cause.

• United States —  “The United States will not attend or participate in any events commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action or the World Conference on Racism, which preceded it,” the State Department spokesperson stated on Monday. “The United States stands with Israel, and has always shared its concerns over the Durban process’s anti-Israel sentiment, use as a forum for antisemitism, and freedom of expression issues.” (Jerusalem Post, May 3, 2021)

• Australia —  “We will not associate Australia with one-sided and contentious language that singles out Israel or an event that champions such language,” Morrison said at an event of the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne. “This is entirely consistent with my government’s very strong voting position on UN General Assembly resolutions, in the Human Rights Council and elsewhere. We will continue that same approach to Durban IV later this year.” (Jerusalem Post, May 6, 2021)

• Canada —  “Canada is concerned that the Durban Process has and continues to be used to push for anti-Israel sentiment and as a forum for antisemitism. That is why we do not plan to attend or participate in events surrounding the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action.” (CBC, May 6, 2021)

• Israel — “I hope others soon realize that an anti-racism conference commemorating an antisemitic, anti-Israel hatefest is not how to fight racism.” (Ambassador Gilad Erdan, May 6, 2021).  “Another country has joined us! Thank you Canada for deciding to boycott the UN event marking 20 years since the despicable antisemitic Durban conference. The U.S. and Australia will also boycott this so-called anti-racism event and I call on others to follow!” (Ambassador Gilad Erdan, May 6, 2021)

• United Kingdom — “Following historic concerns regarding antisemitism, the UK has decided not to attend the UN’s Durban Conference anniversary event later this year.” (Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, June 21, 2021)

• Hungary — “The Hungarian government declared a zero-tolerance policy against antisemitism and is fully committed to guarantee the safety of the Jewish people that we also consistently represent in the international fora. In this spirit, Hungary does not support the Durban process and voted against the resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 31 December 2020 deciding on the convening of a high-level meeting on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action.” (Jerusalem Post, June 27, 2021)

• The Netherlands — “The Netherlands does not intend to participate in the Durban IV meeting, in view of the historical burden of the Durban process, the risk of repetition of abuse of this platform for antisemitic expressions and the disproportionate and one-sided attention to Israel as reflected in the original Durban statement.” (Dutch House of Representatives, July 8, 2021)

• Austria — “Austria supports efforts to combat racism worldwide, while rejecting the misuse of the Durban process to unfairly single out and target Israel. Therefore, Austria abstained on the vote to hold a high-level conference in New York to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Durban conference. There will be no participation at the political level.” (The Jerusalem Post, July 9, 2021)

• Czech Republic — “The Czech Republic won’t take part in this year’s Durban Conference. I’ve taken this decision due to historic concerns regarding antisemitism and the misuse of the platform for attacks against Israel. We will continue to fight racism and discrimination and promote human rights!.” (Foreign Minister Jakub Kulhanek, July 12, 2021)

• Germany — “The Federal Government has decided not to take part in the United Nations Durban IV Conference. Welt am Sonntag learned this from the Federal Foreign Office. The high-level meeting at the level of heads of state and government on September 22, 2021 is to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration… In the declaration, Israel was demonized and delegitimized, and anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial were spread at the parallel NGO forum. The Durban Conference is considered to be the birth of the anti-Semitic Israel boycott campaign BDS.”  (Die Welt, July 24, 2021)

• France — “Concerned by a history of anti-Semitic remarks made at the U.N. conference on racism, known as the Durban conference, the President of the Republic has decided that France will not participate in the follow-up conference to be held this year.”  (Le Figaro, August 13, 2021)

• Bulgaria — “‘Bulgaria will not participate in the UNGA high-level meeting on the Durban Declaration and Plan of Action,’ the country’s foreign ministry tweeted on Thursday. ‘Given the history of the process, there’s a risk that the forum could be misused for antisemitic propaganda. We stay committed to fighting racism in all its forms and manifestation.'”  (Jerusalem Post, August 27, 2021)

• Croatia — “Croatian news site Vecernji said the country will not participate in Durban IV because of ‘the constant antisemitic attitudes and the linking of conferences to anti-Israel propaganda and the promotion of intolerance.'”  (Jerusalem Post, September 8, 2021)

• New Zealand — “A spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Wellington said on Thursday: ‘New Zealand remains strongly committed to combatting racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance. Consistent with our long-standing position, New Zealand will not attend the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration conference in New York on 22 September 2021.'”  (Jerusalem Post, September 9, 2021)

URGE COUNTRIES TO PULL OUT:  SIGN THE PETITION!

Country Statements on UN Durban Conferences

United States

Letter from Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to UN Ambassador Susan Rise (June 1, 2011)
“Unfortunately last year the 2009 U.N. Durban Review Conference Against Racism (Durban II) proved to be a repeat of the 2001 controversial summit as extreme anti-Semitic voices took over Durban II, and the United States and our allies were forced to pull out. The United States had likewise withdrawn from participating in Durban I primarily because the conference was viewed as disproportionately focused on Israel and the United States. It is important that the United States send a strong signal that another anti-Semitic and anti-American Durban Conference particularly held so close to the tenth anniversary and location of the worst terrorist attack in American history is unacceptable.”

Statement by the Obama Press Secretary on the 10th Anniversary of the Durban Conference (September 22, 2011)
“Since its inception at the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa, the Durban process has included ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism. In 2009, after working to try to achieve a positive, constructive outcome in the Durban Review Conference that would get past the deep flaws of the Durban process to date to focus on the critical issues of racism, the United States withdrew from participating because the review conference’s outcome document reaffirmed, in its entirety, the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) from 2001, which unfairly and unacceptably singled out Israel.”

U.S. Statement on the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (September 27, 2011)
“Our concerns about the 2001 Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (DDPA) are well-known, including its unfair and unacceptable singling out of Israel and its endorsement of overbroad restrictions on freedom of expression that run counter to the U.S. commitment to robust free speech.  But we will always stand ready to work with others in the effort to combat racism, bigotry, and racial discrimination.”

US Statement at the Working Group on the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (April 7, 2014)
“As you know, the United States normally does not participate in this working group because of our significant and well-known concerns about the Durban Declaration and Program of Action.”

US EOV on the Mandate of the Intergovernmental Working Group on the Effective Implementation of the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action (March 24, 2017
“We regret that we cannot support this resolution on such an important topic due to our concerns about the Durban Declaration and Program of Action (DDPA) and the outcome of the Durban review conference, which are well-known. We believe this resolution serves as a vehicle to prolong the divisions caused by the Durban conference and its follow-up rather than providing a comprehensive and inclusive way forward for the international community to combat the scourge of racism and racial discrimination.”

United Kingdom

Prime Minister David Cameron on Durban III, via BBC (September 15, 2011)
“Ten years ago, the World Conference on Racism saw open displays of unpleasant and deplorable anti-Semitism. It would be wrong to commemorate those displays. Indeed, they should be condemned. And that’s why the UK will play no part in this conference.”

Canada

Minister Jason Kenny on Durban III, via AP (November 25, 2010)
“Canada is clearly committed to the fight against racism, but the Durban process commemorates an agenda that actually promotes racism rather than combats it.”

Statement by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff on Durban III (November 25, 2010)
“The first Durban conference, which the proposed Durban III conference seeks to commemorate, turned into a festival of racism against Israel and the Jewish people that Canada was right to condemn. Sadly, while a decade has passed, the Durban conferences remain a staging ground for anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements. Canada should absolutely not participate in the Durban III conference or countenance in any way these hateful views.”

France

President Nicolas Sarkozy on Durban II, via JTA (February 14, 2008)
“The Durban conference in 2001 led to intolerable excesses from certain states and numerous NGOs that turned the conference into a forum against Israel, and no one has forgotten. France will not allow a repetition of the excesses and abuses of 2001. Our European partners share France’s concerns. France will chair the EU in the final months preceding the review conference. I say to you: if ever our legitimate demands are not taken into account, we will disengage from the process.”

Germany

Federal Government will not participate in Anti-Racism Conference in Geneva (April 19, 2009)
“I have decided today that Germany will not participate in the Durban Review Conference due to begin tomorrow. This is not a decision we have taken lightly. But despite intensive efforts notably by the EU in the run-up to the conference, the Federal Government believes there is still a risk the conference will be used as a platform for the pursuit of other interests, just as its predecessor in 2001 was. That is something we cannot accept.”

Australia

Declaration by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith (April 19, 2009)
“Australia has decided not to participate in the Durban Review Conference. The 2001 Declaration singled out Israel and the Middle East. Australia expressed strong concerns about this at the time. Regrettably, we cannot be confident that the Review Conference will not again be used as a platform to air offensive views, including anti-Semitic views.”

Italy

Declaration by Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini (July 22, 2011)
“For some time now we have had some reservations over the exercise known in the UN sphere as the “Durban Process”, because over the years it has been instrumentalized in political terms. The Process has been transformed from a forum for debate on and coordination of international action against racism, discrimination and xenophobia, into a tribunal for accusations against Israel.”

The Netherlands

The Netherlands, Italy and the Czech Republic: no confidence in UN anti-racism meeting (July 22, 2011)
“In the intervening years, a number of countries have repeatedly used discussions on combating racism, xenophobia and discrimination to draw attention to the peace process in the Middle East and denounce Israel’s right to exist…the three countries now feel they have no option but to pull out of preparations for the celebrations and to stay at home in September.”

New Zealand

Foreign Minister Murray McCully on Durban III, via Jerusalem Post (September 17, 2011)
“We remain concerned that the commemoration of the 2001 Durban Declaration could reopen the offensive and anti-Semitic debates which undermined the original World Conference. For these reasons, we have decided not to participate. New Zealand is fully committed to combating racism and we agree the UN should lead discussions on the elimination of racism. That is why we engaged constructively in the preparatory discussions in New York. However, in the end, the text is not one that we could support.”

Key Resources

The Durban Debacle, Tom Lantos

Durban: A Circus of Calumny, Elie Wiesel

The post Durban IV: Key Facts appeared first on UN Watch.

The Dalai Lama sent a special envoy to the Geneva ceremony, which was attended by UN officials, ambassadors, and community leaders, along with Canadian Health Minister Rona Ambrose.
“UN Watch honors Minister Kenney for demonstrating the courage to lead in upholding the founding principles of the United Nations, and defending the true principles of human rights,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
To appreciate Minister Kenney’s principled positions, see selections below from his candid remarks as delivered at the gala.
Previous winners of the UN Watch award include Spanish Prime Minister Josa Maria Aznar, British parliamentarian John Mann, and North Korean dissident Shin Dong-hyuk.
UN Watch’s international advisory board includes Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble, Chinese dissident Yang Jianli and Katrina Lantos Swett, Chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.
POWERFUL REMARKS BY CANADIAN MINISTER JASON KENNEY 
On the UN’s ‘Durban II’ World Racism Conference:

“I recall being at an international conference in London around the time just after Canada announced our withdrawal from Durban II, and the minister of another government, whom I won’t mention for diplomatic reasons, came up to me and said, ‘Why exactly have you Canadians decided to do this?’

And I thought for a moment and said, ‘Well, listen, I can give you an hour’s worth of reasons for why we’ve withdrawn from Durban, but I’ll save both of us a lot of time and just give you one: Iran is the vice-chair of the conference. Argument is over!’”  Click for video
On Iran’s Torturer-in-Chief Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council — and the Importance of UN Watch Calling Out the Hypocrisy:
“An Iranian-Canadian woman named Zahra Kazemi went back to be a witness. She was a photojournalist. In 2005, she returned to Iran to record the democratic longings of the Iranian people, the persecution of gays, Bahais, Christians and other religious minorities.
Because of her moral courage she was arrested in Evin prison. She was tortured and murdered by a man named Saeed Mortazavi who was then Prosecutor-General in Tehran.
When our government came to office in 2006, we learned a few months later that Saeed Mortazavi was coming to Geneva to participate with the Iranian delegation at the hearings of the UN Human Rights Council.
And that one story tells you all you need to know about why we need UN Watch. Why we need to hold that and similar bodies accountable.
Why we need — when others would listen to the seductive voice of diplomatic politesse — why we need a Hillel Neuer standing at the microphone as an observer, calling people to account for allowing monsters like Saeed Mortazavi to have a microphone at a body dedicated to human rights. It’s wrong! And UN Watch is right to call those people to account.”  Click for video
On the Mission of UN Watch:
“To its great credit, UN Watch is doggedly, consistently focused on a very simple objective, which is to hold the United Nations to account to its own stated principles, of its founding charter. Such as, the first words in the preamble of the UN Charter from 1945: ‘the UN is founded to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights and the dignity and worth of the human person’.”
On the New Anti-Semitism:
“What do I mean by ‘the new anti-Semitism?’ I mean a growing acceptance of the unique an growing vilification of Israel and the new apologetics that try to hide or explain away the underlying anti-Semitism.
Today, there are those who are trying to strip the State of Israel if its citizenship in the international community, minimize its natural rights as a sovereign state, and even deny its right to exist.

The Dalai Lama’s envoy placed a traditional Tibetan scarf upon Kenney to recognize his outspoken defense of oppressed Tibetans.

Dalai Lama to Minister Jason Kenney on receiving UN Watch Award: “I have great admiration for your leadership, the concern and active support you have shown for the Tibetan cause, and your role in enhancing Canada’s diverse multi-ethnic and multicultural society… I have been impressed by your efforts to support the rights of oppressed people around the world.”

The new anti-Semitism has adopted even more sophisticated language than the old one. Instead of targeting the Jewish people, it now targets the Jewish homeland but it ultimately espouses the same ancient hatred and the old intent. Of course, criticism of Israel cannot in and of itself be regarded as anti-Semitic, however, if and when that criticism selectively condemns, selectively condemns and denies the only Jewish state’s right to exist, it cannot be considered anything but anti-Semitic.”
Canada Will no Longer Go Along to Get Along
“As Prime Minister Steven Harper has said, Canada has a purpose in the world, and that purpose is no longer just to go along with everyone else’s agenda. It is no longer to please every dictator with a vote at the United Nations, and I confess that I don’t know why past attempts to do so were ever thought to be in Canada’s national interest. He went on to say, ‘Now we know where our interests lie and who our friends are, and we take strong principled positions in our dealings with other nations whether popular or not and that is what the world can count on from Canada.’
“I’m proud to repeat those words to you today, and I’m proud to receive this award on behalf of all my colleagues and Prime Minister Harper, to wish you continued success, to Hillel and the entire UN Watch team, as they continue to be a voice for the voiceless and speak truth to power. Thank you very much.”
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Congratulatory Messages
Human rights dissidents, activists, and community leaders sent their congratulations to Minister Jason Kenney for receiving the UN Watch award. Click here to see messages from former Chinese political prisoner Rebiya Kadeer, international human rights advocate and MP Irwin Cotler, CIJA, Canadian Friends of Burma, African Diaspora Association of Canada, B’nai Brith Canada, Vietnamese Canadian Federation, All Pakistan Minorities Association, World Uyghur Congress, the Federation for a Democratic China, and others.

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The West Must Bear Witness to Iran’s Prisoners

Oct. 25, 2011

By Linda Frum, Member of the Canadian Senate

Last month in New York, in the shadow of the sham “human rights conference” known as Durban III, I had the honour of attending a counter-conference organized by the human rights organization UN Watch.

At this conference, leading dissidents and human rights activists from Iran, Syria, Cuba, Burma, North Korea and China assembled to shine a light on the extreme human rights violations that the UN’s corrupt “Human Rights Council” would rather ignore.

One of the most touching pieces of testimony at the UN Watch conference was a letter smuggled out of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison, read aloud by Iranian human rights activist Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi. I have put this letter into the record of the proceedings of the Senate of Canada as a show of solidarity with the suffering of its author, a brave and principled ayatollah whose only crime was to advocate in favour of the separation of religion and government.

According to Amnesty International, poor prison conditions, torture and ill treatment have left Ayatollah Boroujerdi in a dangerously precarious state of health. I read his letter aloud to the Senate to honour his courage and that of his family and supporters and to let them know that we in the Senate of Canada bear witness to their struggle and to the leadership and criminal treatment of this good man.

Here is his message:

The post Issue 318: The West Must Bear Witness to Iran’s Prisoners, Huffington Post appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA – In a show of support for the Geneva-based UN Watch group, the White House stated it was “deeply disappointed” that United Nations rules for credentialing non-governmental organizations to yesterday’s world racism summit were used “to silence voices critical of the Durban process.”

“We are very grateful to President Obama’s Administration for speaking out against this dangerous attempt to chill free speech in the UN debate on human rights,” said UN Watch director Hillel Neuer, who was in New York to organize a summit of prominent exiles and dissidents that met this week in parallel with the General Assembly. (www.ngosummit.org)

‘At the same time, we’re surprised and, frankly, disappointed that UN rights chief Navi Pillay, the leading UN figure in the Durban process, has declined to speak out against this injustice, which stains the reputation of her anti-racism office.”

Also speaking out for UN Watch was U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said the Durban conference “benefitted extremists” in “welcoming the participation of a Qaddafi-funded front group” while “banning the UN Watch group.”

UN Watch was barred from participating today in yesterday’s summit of world leaders to commemorate the 2001 Durban racism conference, but admitted the group North South 21, which gives out the Moammar al-Gaddafi Human Rights Prize. Details here.  See UN Watch letter below.

The Geneva-based UN Watch, an accredited non-governmental observer with the world body, urged UN rights chief Navi Pillay, who oversees the UN’s anti-racism campaign, to condemn UN Watch’s unprecedented exclusion from a UN meeting — for which it was given no reasons, notice, or opportunity to object.

In a letter to UN Watch (click here), the office of High Commissioner of Human Rights Navi Pillay pledged to pass on UN Watch’s appeal to the General Assembly, but has so far refused to speak out against the discriminatory decision.

UN Watch and 20 human rights NGOs are today organizing a major parallel summit of dissidents next to the UN, featuring famous victims of the regimes that promote the Durban meeting.

The UN may have admitted the Qaddafi Prize group thanks to its close ties to Jean Ziegler, a long-time official of the UN Human Rights Council, said UN Watch.

According to a recent Swiss TV report, Ziegler played a significant role in North-South 21, the Geneva group created by the Libyan regime to manage the Qaddafi Prize and spread propaganda for the Qaddafi regime. Most recently, Ziegler helped edit a 2010 book that effusively praised Col. Qaddafi by comparing him to the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The publication was distributed by North South 21 at the Council in November while the human rights record of Libya was being examined, and effusively praised by most countries.

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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.

As you know, on July 7th your office wrote to UN Watch and invited us to apply to participate at the Durban commemoration, saying that non-governmental organizations are essential in combating racism. We immediately applied, providing detailed documentation on our extensive activities, at the UN and elsewhere, to combat racism and discrimination. We attended the first two Durban conferences in 2001 and 2009.

Suddenly, from a posting on a UN website—only one week prior to the event—we now learn that UN Watch is one of four groups to be rejected from next week’s meeting. We were given no notice, no reasons, and no chance to contest the decision. This flouts the basic principles—which you have so articulately advocated on the world stage—of accountability, transparency, and due process. As the only watchdog group mandated to monitor the UN according to the principles of its charter, our voice is essential. We urge you to speak out against this injustice, which undermines the UN’s credibility in combating discrimination.

Sincerely,

Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
UN Watch

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The UN’s red carpet for tyrants: We’re hosting our own assembly where repression isn’t welcome

BY YANG JIANLI

Monday, September 19th 2011

United Nations General Assembly, held annually in New York, is a permanent fixture of the diplomatic calendar. Just as inevitably, in the year that passes between each session, the world undergoes changes on a scale from the significant to the enormous.

This Wednesday, when President Obama opens the general debate of the Assembly’s 66th session, those changes will impact most visibly upon the roster of world leaders not in attendance.

Few, for example, will forget Libyan Col. Moammar Khadafy’s 2009 appearance, when he delivered a rambling, 1-1/2-hour speech, tossed aside a copy of the UN charter and called the Security Council a “terror council.”

In 2011, Khadafy’s regime will be invisible. His key UN diplomats already defected in February.

Similarly, thanks to the political convulsions across the Middle East, other repressive regimes – from Egypt, from Tunisia – will be absent this year, never to return.

Even so, for every collapsed tyrannical regime, there are several more that have retained power. And they, too, will be represented in New York, and treated with all the respect we afford duly elected leaders of constitutional, multiparty democracies.

From the Middle East, their number includes Syria, Sudan and Iran – whose president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be attending the Assembly for the seventh year in a row.

More broadly, this club of tyrannies includes Zimbabwe, Cuba and, of course, my own country, China, a Security Council member.

This depressing reality underlines the greatest challenge of the UN system, which has never distinguished between democracies and dictatorships – despite the fact that the UN is sworn to universally uphold the same human rights for all peoples, regardless of where they live.

Given this paradox, how is meaningful action possible on urgent human rights violations, such as China’s brutal crackdown this year on citizens who dared to peacefully gather for walks around Chinese cities?

The GA’s prearranged agenda precludes such discussions. When the world body does make the news, it’s about the outrageous theatrics of its participants: Ahmadinejad denying the Holocaust, say, or Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez suggesting that former President George W. Bush was Satan.

The UN’s bloc of authoritarian states are all too powerful to prevent the democratic impulses sweeping the world from surfacing in the world body. Back in March, after Libya was finally suspended from the UN’s Human Rights Council, I had occasion to address that body. Recalling the case of Liu Xiaobo, a writer serving an 11-year jail sentence for advocating freedom, I asked how China’s Communist regime, whose victims run into the millions, could remain as a member. I was interrupted by China and Cuba and never received an answer.

That is one of the many reasons why I will be joining an international coalition of dissidents and human rights organizations in New York this week. Led by UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO that works the UN’s corridors on behalf of human rights victims across the world, we will hold a parallel summit to combat discrimination and persecution. It’ll take place within a stone’s throw of the UN’s headquarters on the banks of the East River.

Like me, many of the summit’s participants are dissidents who were imprisoned for the sole crime of promoting democracy.

Rebiya Kadeer, the voice of China’s oppressed Uyghur minority, was jailed for five years, two of them in solitary confinement. Ahmad Batebi, an icon of Iran’s student democracy movement, was tortured for eight years in an Iranian prison. The mullahs never forgave the July 17, 1999, cover of The Economist, showing a photo of Batebi with the bloodied T-shirt of his friend, shot at a peaceful rally. Grace Kwinjeh, the Zimbabwean dissident and journalist, was tortured in prison by President Robert Mugabe’s thugs. Now in exile, she fights the regime’s victimization of women.

These and other participants, like Berta Antunes of Cuba and Jacqueline Kasha of Uganda, took extraordinary risks for the causes they represent.

Together, we will produce a series of proposed human rights resolutions for the UN to adopt, based upon a common principle: The use of fear as an instrument of government must be banished forever.

Freedom from fear was promised by the UN in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Rest assured that until this basic freedom is taken seriously in those halls, our voices will ring loud.

Jianli is a leading Chinese human rights advocate. An eyewitness to the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, he now lives in the United States, where he founded Initiatives for China, a pro-democracy organization.

Link to New York Daily News: https://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/09/19/2011-09-19_the_uns_red_carpet_for_tyrants.html#ixzz1YP7kj7OX 

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