The post UNRWA Jordan Deletes Employees’ Incitement appeared first on UN Watch.

The “neutrality principle” is a sword on the necks of UNRWA employees.

Jordan (Palestinian Refugees Portal) – The Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees has levied penalties against several teachers and employees in its areas of operation in Jordan. The penalties ranged from a warning to suspension from work for one month due to their violation of the so-called “neutrality principle”, which UNRWA follows and requires its personnel to observe. This principle is controversial because it is unclear and has multiple interpretations; it also diminishes the rights of the Agency’s employees, which underscores the need for this principle and its implementation mechanism to be explained by the UNRWA management.
Based on this principle, UNRWA personnel are prohibited from participating in any political activity that contradicts or negatively reflects on the independence and neutrality that is required from them as employees. This includes affiliation with political parties or membership in a political committee, and exposes UNRWA employees who naturally deal with the Palestinian issue to potential accusations, which may lead to potential penalties.
UNRWA is now also pursuing its personnel on websites and social networks, even in terms of the simplest activities, such as liking a certain publication or webpage or posting content. Their activities on the Internet is monitored and they are held accountable for it as part of the so-called “neutrality principle”. According to UNRWA, even personal use of social media must obey the Agency’s rules and regulations.
In its training material concerning the use of social networks and the principle of neutrality, UNRWA indicated that due to the nature of websites and social networks, which make it easy to post and chat online, such activities should be regarded as public and overt, and will be seen by UNRWA as such. The Agency also indicated that personal communications on social networks should comply with the principle of neutrality, independence, and objectivity at work.
The [Jordanian] Senate’s Palestine Committee has met with the manager of the UNRWA operations office in Jordan, David Roger, and the director general of the Department of Palestinian Affairs, Yassin Awad. During the meeting, it demanded that the penalties be cancelled and that the term “neutrality”, which the Agency had started to implement, be redefined. The Committee also warned UNRWA not to infringe upon its employees’ rights and livelihood.
According to Roger, “the Agency’s personnel participated in many courses, where the meaning of neutrality was defined. The levied penalties have not caused anyone to lose their jobs. Roger added that he did not make the decisions and they don’t fall under his authority”.
Attempting to clarify this matter, the Palestinian Refugees Portal contacted UNRWA’s media office in Jordan. They refused to comment and said that “this is an internal matter of the Agency, which should not be disclosed”. The Palestinian Refugees Portal also met with many UNRWA employees to discuss the matter, and hear their points of view, but since they are not allowed to speak to the media, we had to disguise their names out of fear they would be harmed.
SD is an UNRWA teacher. He told the Palestinian Refugees Portal that “the neutrality law is oppressive. How can anyone observe neutrality, having been expelled from his land and fought against”. He also clarified that “the decisions were taken before the employees were informed of what they were prohibited from doing; the neutrality law contradicts UN Resolution 194, which guarantees the right of return and compensation to the refugees”.
UNRWA teacher RA said that “neutrality is intended to put a gag on the mouths of the Agency’s employees. This law imposes on them silence in fear for their income and their children’s survival”. He added that “this law violates human rights laws, in particular the freedom of opinion and expression”.
HA is an UNRWA employee. She says that “because we work for the Agency, they prevent us from expressing or sharing political opinions”. She also explained that the Agency distributed brochures to its employees and that it administers courses to introduce the concept of neutrality and the rules of using social networks.
In its statement, the Executive Committee of UNRWA Teachers / Jordan Workers’ Union expressed its disappointment and disapproval of the decisions that had been made, and mentioned that 21 people had been penalized. The Committee demanded that a clear definition of the neutrality principle be found, so as to explain what is allowed and what is forbidden. They also said that “the topic of neutrality does not apply just to UNRWA employees in Jordan, but rather has a bearing on more than 30,000 employees in the Agency’s areas of operation in Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, as well as Jordan”.
The Committee indicated that these penalties had been levied before the Agency’s personnel received any education and training. It called upon the Commissioner General to revoke the decision. They also urged the governments of all the hosting countries to discuss the topic with the Agency’s management because this concerns all of the Agency’s personnel in its areas of operation.
National and public activists follow with great fear and interest the consequences of what they describe as dictatorial procedures against the employees. In an announcement about neutrality, as well as the levied penalties and their effect, they said: “the oppressive neutrality law is used as a sword put upon the necks of UNRWA personnel, which makes them choose one of two options: either give up on – and abandon the national constants, or fight for their workplace and livelihood”.
The activists also demanded that the observance of the neutrality principle be discontinued altogether, including any consequential penalties. They said that lessening the penalties was not enough, indicating that this principle represents a blatant violation of the UN-approved human rights principles, and therefore everyone should oppose it and act to revoke it.
Training booklet for managers and inspectors on social media and neutrality: here.

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• New Video: What Happened to the UN?
• Ban Ki-moon names Jordan’s Prince Zeid as next UN rights chief
• Iranian torture victim receives UN Watch’s Human Rights Award, blasts Tehran regime

New Video: What Happened to the UN?
The following new video tells the story of what happened to the United Nations—and how UN Watch battled over the past 12 months to defend the true principles of human rights at the world body.

Click here to watch new video
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Ban Ki-moon names Jordan’s Prince Zeid as next UN rights chief
With the approval of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has picked Jordan’s UN ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, to replace the controversial Navi Pillay as the next UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The nomination is expected to be rubber-stamped by the 193-nation UN General Assembly, with the Prince to take over the UN rights office in Geneva by September.With the approval of the UN Security Council’s five permanent members, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has picked Jordan’s UN ambassador, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein, to replace the controversial Navi Pillay as the next UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“Awesome achievement for Jordan and great recognition of the Kingdom’s efforts,” said Andrew Harper, the UNHCR representative in Jordan.
Also welcoming the appointment were France, Canada, Jordan,Israel, and numerous officials of Human Rights Watch. However, some activists raised Jordan’s poor human rights record.
Prince Zeid has earned respect for his work to promote the international criminal court, and for challenging sexual harassment by UN peacekeepers. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and Cambridge University, he worked for the UN peacekeeping mission in the former Yugoslavia.
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Iranian dissident receives UN Watch’s 2014 Human Rights Award, urges world to defend victims of Boko Haram and Iranian regime

Celia Michonik, UN Watch Chair of International Outreach, presented the Morris Abram Human Rights Award to Iranian dissident Marina Nemat. The award was strongly praised by The National Review, and reported in the Tribune de Genève and the Ecumenical News.

UN Watch awarded its prestigious annual human rights prize to Iranian dissident and best-selling author Marina Nemat, who was jailed and tortured as a political prisoner in Tehran when she was only 16 years old.
Click here for video of her remarks.
The prize ceremony took place at UN Watch’s 2014 Annual Gala, held on May 22nd in Geneva. Also honored was Canadian Cabinet Minister Jason Kenney, the keynote speaker, whose remarks appeared in our last issue here.
UN Watch this year chose to honor Marina Nemat to recognize “her brave and outstanding work in bearing witness to the horrific crimes perpetrated against her by a regime that continues to assault, jail, torture, rape and execute human rights defenders, religious, ethnic and sexual minorities, and thousands of other innocent men, women and children,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.
Marina’s clear and compelling testimonies, published in best-selling books and delivered before the United Nations and numerous other global audiences, have helped stir the conscience of mankind to demand fundamental human rights for the voiceless victims of Iran, whose plight has only worsened in inverse proportion to the charm offensive of its rulers.
Nemat received the Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award, named after the civil rights advocate, diplomat and UN delegate who founded the watchdog NGO in 1993.
In recent years, UN Watch has arranged for Nemat to address key human rights fora in Geneva. New York, and Vienna, including testifying before the UN Human Rights Council.
Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Russian dissident and world chess champion Garry Kasparov, Dr. Massouda Jalal, the first woman in Afghanistan to run for president and to serve as Minister for Women’s Affairs, and Esther Mujawayo, an activist for victims of the genocide in Rwanda.

REMARKS OF MARINA NEMAT TO UN WATCH GALA
Click here for video
Marina Nemat’s appeal to the human rights community
“You have heard what Boko Haram has done to Nigerian teenagers. This happened on April 14th, and it took the media three weeks to cover the story… It amazed me that in the 1980s in Iran, the government of Iran did—on a massive scale—what Boko Haram is doing right now. They took me and my friends out of our mothers’ arms at the ages of 15, 16, 17, even 13, and took us to Evin prison. They tied us to bare beds and beat us to a pulp.”
“They put many of us in front of firing squads. I was forced to marry my interrogator; it was their way of legalizing rape. This happened not only to me, but to nearly 40,000 young women. And I’m here in front of you today, 30 years later, and I beg one thing: Please acknowledge us, please speak out against such atrocity that is taking the lives and dignity of young women not only in Nigeria, but in many countries around the world including Iran.”
“Please stand in the way of the Iranian regime. It is not only the nuclear bomb that is an issue. It is an issue, don’t get me wrong. But, if we are negotiating with Iran, if the United States and other countries are negotiating with Iran, I beg of them to put human rights in the front in center.”
Marina Nemat on her partnership with UN Watch
“UN Watch has become family to me, and I think Hillel know that, and Arielle, she knows that. Thank you. You guys have given me an opportunity that no one else has managed to give: to face my torturers at the UN Human Rights Council…”
“The representatives of Iran—Hillel remembers—they were sitting only meters from us… I glanced at them a few times, and not even for a moment, not even for a moment did they look at me… That is something that will stay with me, and I dedicate this award and I dedicate those moment to my good friend Shinos Bezagi. She died at the age of 15, in October 1981, even before I was arrested. She can rest in peace knowing that I will not let it go… I have pledged to my friends and cellmates who have survived that I will stand for this till the last breath I take.”

The post Issue 491: New video: What happened to the UN? * Jordanian Prince picked to be UN rights chief * Iranian dissident wins UN Watch rights award appeared first on UN Watch.

The post Comment on Saudi-Jordan Trade of UN Seats appeared first on UN Watch.

It is appalling that seats on the world’s top human rights body are being traded like merchandise, treated as trinkets by non-democracies. We are witnessing backroom deals of the most cynical kind, which show contempt for the official UN membership criteria requiring that candidates be elected on the basis of their record in promoting and protecting human rights.
We call on UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon to condemn such crass practices. We also reiterate our call upon U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power and EU foreign affairs commissioner Catherine Ashton to end their silence over the absurd, hypocritical and dangerous candidacies of dictatorships like China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia.” (Click here for full appeal.)

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UN Watch and Human Rights Foundation brought famous dissidents to testify at UN headquarters this past Monday, November 4th, before a gathering of diplomats, activists and journalists. Left to right: Chinese dissident Yang Jianli, Cuban dissident Rosa Maria Paya, Saudi dissident Ali Al-Ahmed, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, HRF president Thor Halvorssen, and Russian dissident Masha Gessen.

The NGO event also featured passionate appeals from some of the world’s most famous human rights dissidents, including blind activist Chen Guangcheng from China, Rosa Maria Paya of Cuba, Ali Al-Ahmed of Saudi Arabia, and Masha Gessen of Russia. (Click here for quotes from the event; and click here for the speech of Chinese dissident Yang Jianli.)
In anticipation of the Nov. 12 elections, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer warns: “If the UN enables gross abusers to act as champions and global judges of human rights, it will be an insult to the political prisoners and other victims of those regimes. When the UN’s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world’s victims suffer.
“China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia systematically violate the human rights of their own citizens,” said Neuer, “and they consistently vote the wrong way on UN initiatives to protect the human rights of others.”
“For the UN to elect Saudi Arabia as a world judge on human rights would be like a town fire department choosing a pyromaniac to be its chief firefighter,” said Neuer.

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Appeal Against UNHRC Candidacies of Algeria, China,
Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam
As sent to all UN member states, 7 November 2013.
Excellency,
We, the undersigned members of parliament, human rights activists and non-governmental organizations, call on you to publicly oppose the candidacies of Algeria, China, Cuba, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, for seats on the United Nations Human Rights Council, elections for which will be held on November 12, 2013.
We urge you to take action to defeat these manifestly unworthy candidacies, which threaten to cast a shadow upon the reputation of the Council—and of the United Nations as a whole.
Candidates for the UN Human Rights Council, according to General Assembly Resolution 60/251, are supposed to be countries that “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights.”
Yet it is widely recognized that Algeria, China, Cuba Russia, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam fail to meet these basic membership criteria. They have poor if not abysmal records on human rights protection at home, and on human rights promotion at the UN.
Rather than giving these non-democratic governments influence over vital decision on human rights, we urge you to introduce resolutions at the United Nations to hold these nations accountable, and to condemn their gross and systematic human rights violations.
Silence is complacency. For the sake of millions of victims worldwide who need a credible and effective international human rights body, please do not be silent.

Sincerely,
Edward McMillan-Scott, MEP
European Parliament Vice-President for Human Rights & Democracy
Elmar Brok, MEP
Chair of Committee on Foreign Affairs, European Parliament
Guy Verhofstadt, MEP
Leader of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)
Former Prime Minister of Belgium
Baroness Deech
Member of the British House of Lords
Academic, lawyer, bioethicist, former Principal of St Anne’s College, Oxford
Baroness Ludford
Member of European Parliament, UK
Honourable Irwin Cotler, MP
Member of Canadian Parliament, Liberal Party Critic for Rights & Freedoms, International Justice
Former Justice Minister & Attorney General
Emanuelis Zingeris, MP
President of the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy, Lithuania
Matyas Eörsi
Secretary General of the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy, former MP, Hungary
Dr. Mantas Adoménas, MP
Lithuania
Michael Danby, MP
Australia
Egidijus Vareikis, MP
Lithuania
Frank Heinrich, MP
Deutscher Bundestag
Bi-khim Hsiao
Member of the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan
Hans van Baalen
Member of the European Parliament, Netherlands
Hannu Takkula
Member of European Parliament, Finland
United Nations Watch
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director
Switzerland
Human Rights Foundation
Thor Halvorssen, President
Initiatives for China
Yang Jianli, President
Council for a Community of Democracies
Robert LaGamma, President
The Gulf Institute
Ali AlAhmed
Mothers and Women against Repression, M.A.R. Por Cuba
Sylvia Iriondo, President
Viet Tan
Do Hoang Diem, Chairman
Click here for more

The post Breaking: Jordan Pulls Out of UNHRC Race * Top EU Lawmakers Urge EU to Oppose China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia appeared first on UN Watch.

The post Top EU Lawmakers Urge Own Governments to Oppose China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia in UN Rights Council Election appeared first on UN Watch.

• Chen Guangcheng, a Chinese civil rights activist who escaped house arrest in 2012 after being detained for organizing a lawsuit against Chinese authorities;
• Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi scholar and political analyst who was arrested as a teenager because of his family members’ political activity;
• Masha Gessen, a Russian journalist, author, and LGBT rights activist forced to flee her country with her family after a crackdown on same-sex families;
• Rosa Maria Payá, a human rights advocate from Cuba leading a campaign to launch an investigation into the death of her father, the late civil society activist Oswaldo Payá; and
• Yang Jianli, a Chinese scholar, pro-democracy advocate, and former political prisoner, who presented a petition against China’s bid for a seat on the UNHRC.

Human Rights Foundation president Thor Halvorssen and UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer jointly present their report evaluating the countries that have submitted candidacies for the November 12 election of new members to the UNHRC.
Click here for PDF of the full report.

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