The mission is headed by Sudanese General Mohammad Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, whose main expertise on human rights abuses lies in committing them on a mass scale. As the Telegraph reports in detail, al-Dabi visited Homs and reported seeing no tanks, while a video shows the monitors standing next to a tank. The general tells the Syrian victims to believe in “dialogue.”

You may ask: What does the Arab League know about democracy, and about making independent, critical evaluations ?

A glance at its Internet home page is revealing.

On the bottom left of the page, the Arab League features a poll asking visitors to vote on how they like the new Website. Here are the choices:

1. “Excellent”

2. “Very Good”

3. “Good”

There are no choices offered of 1. “Boring”; 2. “Ancien Regime Spin”; or 3. “Has Far Too Many Empty Spaces.”

According to the results at the time of this posting, an amazingly impressive total of 100 percent of respondents find the Arab League’s new Website to be “Good” (41%), “Very Good” (29%) or “Excellent” (30%).

Is there any reason to think the evaluation forms on Syrian conduct now being filled out by General al-Dabi’s monitors don’t feature the same rich variety of probing categories?

The post Arab League Poll Choices: Good, Very Good, Excellent appeared first on UN Watch.

Vote slammed by UNESCO director & Canada FM

GENEVA, Nov. 23 – UNESCO’s executive board, which includes the US, France, the UK and other Western democracies, unanimously elected Syria to a pair of committees – one dealing directly with human rights issues – even as the Bashar al-Assad regime maintains its campaign of violence against its own citizens.

The Arab group at UNESCO nominated Syria for the spots, and though the 58-member board approved the pick by consensus on Nov. 11, the agency has not yet posted the results on its website.

Syria’s election came just a day before the League of Arab States moved to suspend Syrian membership of that body.

“The Arab League’s suspension of Syria is stripped of any meaning when its member states elevate Syria to UN human rights committes,” says Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based monitoring group UN Watch.

“It’s shameful for the UN’s prime agency on science, culture and education to take a country that is shooting its own people and empower it to decide human rights issues on a global scale. Regrettably, the pressure to bow to consensus –  part of the go-along-to-get-along tradition at the UN – can drag everyone down to the will of the lowest common denominator.”

Neuer highlights that the executive board’s decision should not be all that surprising, given the body “recently welcomed serial human rights abusers as new members, like Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Pakistan and Russia.” Syria was already on the executive board, noted Neuer, “as were other countries with poor human rights records, including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, China, Vietnam and Algeria.”

The UN says Syria’s crackdown on opposition protests has left more than 3,500 people dead over the past eight months.

“By rewarding the murderous Syrian regime with badges of international legitimacy, UNESCO has endangered core interests of the U.S. and its allies, undermining national security, regional stability and democratic values.”

Syria will serve a second two-year term on the 30-member Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, which examines “communications … relating to the exercise of human rights,” according to UNESCO’s Web site. Syria also joins the 23-member Committee on International Non-Governmental Organizations, which is mandated to encourage approved activist groups to help further UNESCO’s overall goals.

In a bid to insulate UNESCO’s administration from criticism, the agency’s executive director, Irina Bokova, insists her hands were tied. She has even broken with protocol in commenting that the executive board’s choice was not a good one.

“The director-general and secretariat are bound by the decisions of member states and are not supposed to comment on them,” said Sue Williams, UNESCO chief spokesperson.

“Yet given the developments in Syria, the director-general does not see how this country can contribute to the work of the committees.”

The criticism of the member states’ move comes as Bokova, on behalf of UNESCO, is struggling to overcome a sudden cut in U.S. funding to the agency after another controversial decision – namely the vote late last month by a majority of UNESCO’s 194 member states to admit Palestine as a full member.

The United States pays 22 per cent of the budgets of all UN agencies, and cut its payments to UNESCO because of longstanding U.S. legislation that prohibits funding any part of the UN that admits Palestine, which is not recognized by the UN as an independent country.

Still, Bokova herself provoked headlines earlier this month when she had one of her senior communications directors summon the Israeli ambassador at UNESCO to complain about a cartoon the Israeli newspaper Haaretz had printed.

Haaretz said the cartoon was an obvious dig at the Israeli government’s anger over the decision to admit Palestine.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives, comments on the developments at UNESCO by saying the agency “continues to outdo itself with stunning and dangerous behavior.”

While the United States and some key allies, including Britain and France, are members of the UNESCO board, Western democracies are in a minority on the body. Canada, which joined the United States in opposing Palestinian membership of UNESCO, but is not a member of the executive board, told UN Watch it regrets the move to elevate Syria.

“While Canada was not involved in this decision, we find it deeply
 disturbing that Syria was designated by the Arab regional group at 
UNESCO as a member of the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, given the Assad regime’s continual and repeated violation of human
rights,” said Joe Lavoie , a spokesman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. “Canada strongly and firmly continues to call on Assad to step aside.”

UN Watch pointed out Tuesday that a resolution supported by an overwhelming majority in the UN General Assembly’s “third” committee – which deals with human rights – defers to Syrian demands for respect of its “territorial integrity” and “political independence” – even as it strongly condemed Syria for its violent crackdown.

The post UNESCO elects Syria to human rights committees appeared first on UN Watch.

Bahrain First to Undergo “Seriously Flawed” Review Procedure 

Geneva, April 7, 2008 — Facing opposition by Arab, Islamic and African states, the UN Human Rights Council’s decision to webcast its review of Bahrain, the first to undergo a new procedure that will scrutinize all UN members, constituted a small victory for reform, UN Watch said today.

“The new system of universal periodic review has serious institutional flaws, including its grant of excessive control over the outcome to the state under review,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights monitoring organization.

“Although the official verdicts are likely to be questionable at best, the very fact of holding debates on countries that were previously given a free pass, even if only once every four years, helps activists to shine an international spotlight on human rights violations, and to challenge government responses that are inadequate or false.”

Today’s three-hour session on Bahrain offered little in the way of scrutiny, and was dominated by praise of the gulf state’s record. In his presentation, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Nizar Al Baharna told the council that Bahrain respected women’s rights, equality and freedom of expression. Of the more than 30 states that then took the floor, most were fellow Islamic nations that complimented Bahrain’s record on “social and economic rights,” with Pakistan citing the growth of its GDP.

“We are deeply disappointed that the session summarily ignored the detailed NGO submissions, which presented evidence of restrictions on freedom of expression and assembly, torture, and violations of women’s rights,” said Neuer. “Although the U.S., Canada, France and a handful of Western democracies posed questions, their interventions were overly cautious and diplomatic, and did little to make this new procedure into one of real scrutiny. Human rights victims deserve far better.”

On Friday, the Arab, Islamic and African blocs made a last-ditch effort to block UN webcasting of the session, but their attempt failed. Click here to read set of demands.

“After a series of major setbacks at the council—including the outrageous insertion of anti-blasphemy provisions into the freedom of expression mandate—this is one small victory that human rights activists must cherish,” said Neuer. 

The post Islamic and African States Fail to Block UN Webcast of Human Rights Hearings appeared first on UN Watch.

Geneva, Nov. 20, 2006 — The following statement by UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer is embargoed until official release of the report by the Human Rights Council’s commission of inquiry into alleged Israeli violations in Lebanon:

On August 11 the Arab League and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) convened an emergency session of the UN Human Rights Council to create a commission of inquiry into “the systematic targeting and killings of civilians by Israel in Lebanon.”  Although Western democracies and major human rights groups objected that the exercise was one-sided—it ignored Hezbollah’s thousands of missile attacks and the kidnapping that sparked the conflict—the censure easily won adoption.  Now giving Iran, Syria and the other 20 OIC state sponsors of the August resolution exactly what they desired, the report released today by the commissioners amounts to a 135-page indictment of Israel and a whitewash of Hezbollah violence.

It is bad enough that the members of the inquiry commission—João Clemente Baena Soares of Brazil, Mohamed Chande Othman of Tanzania, and Stelios Perrakis of Greece—consented to a mandate directed against only one side of an international conflict, and ignoring the roles of Hezbollah and its sponsors, Iran and Syria.  Worse, though, is that even in regard to that one party there was to be no genuine “inquiry”.  The verdict was predetermined:  the August resolution already found that Israel was guilty—of “gross violations” and more.  All the commissioners were instructed to do was justify this conclusion by coming up with many ways to describe Israel’s prejudged guilt.  This they have done.

The commissioners legitimize Hezbollah by adopting the terrorist group’s version of history, of this summer’s conflict and of international law.

“During the 1980s,” according to the report’s Profile and Background section, “Israel carried out frequent military operations, including shellings and air attacks.”  Deliberately omitted here, however, are little facts like the preceding takeover of Southern Lebanon by Yasser Arafat and his 18,000 PLO guerillas, who launched massive artillery and mortar attacks against Israeli villagers in the Galilee, as well as more than 270 terrorist attacks against innocent civilians across Israel in the 12 months leading up to June 1982.

But the commissioners are eager at every turn to give voice to Hezbollah’s claim—which they repeat without ever challenging—that it is a legitimate “armed resistance against Israel’s unlawful occupation of Lebanese territory.”  Their discussion of Israel’s complete, UN-certified withdrawal of Lebanon in the year 2000 artfully obscures the fact that the UN flatly rejected Hezbollah’s pretext that there remains an Israeli “occupation” of Lebanon.  The commissioners also render Hezbollah’s flouting of Security Council resolutions 1559 and 1680 as mere “non-compliance,” or, even softer, as “non full implementation.” Worse, those resolutions are reduced by the commissioners to the single requirement that Hezbollah “disarm”—omitting that both texts expressly require Hezbollah’s complete disbanding.  But recalling that international law requires Hezbollah to outright disband might cast aspersion on the latter’s legitimacy, and so it was conveniently ignored.

But what is by far the report’s greatest lapse is their selective approach to evidence.  Statements submitted by any Lebanese source—including Hezbollah-related organizations and individuals such as former Hezbollah Minister of Labor Trad Hmadeh—are accepted fully.  Attached to their report the commissioners publish without comment a lengthy Lebanese report listing every death as an “Israeli massacre.”

By contrast, although the report purports to thank NGOs for their contributions, the commissioners entirely ignored submissions to them by Amnesty International, UN Watch and other NGOs concerning violations by Hezbollah.  The report does this not only in its fundamental failure to address Hezbollah violations as a subject in itself, but even in those few areas where they it does claim to consider Hezbollah actions.  For example:

• The commissioners recognize that a TV station can be a legitimate target “if it called upon its audience to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.”  But they then condemn Israel’s disabling of the Al-Manar station because “the Commission was not provided with any evidence of this ‘effective contribution to military action’.”  This is false.   The UN Watch submission to the commission included testimony of Al-Manar’s aiding and abetting of war crimes, including a quote by a official of that station admitting that “[Al-Manar is meant to] help people on the way to committing what you call in the West a ‘suicide mission.’ [Its videos] are meant to be the first step in the process of a freedom fighter operation.”

• The commissioners stated that they “found no evidence regarding the use of ‘human shields’ by Hezbollah.”  In fact, the commission was provided with compelling evidence of exactly that—including, inter alia, general statements from UN experts like Jan Egeland regarding Hezbollah’s “cowardly blending […] among women and children”; and specific reports on Hezbollah’s forced use of human shields such as one documenting that “Hezbollah fighters had killed a man who was trying to leave Bint Jbail” (28 July 2006 New York Times article, in the UN Watch submission).

Despite all of this, the commissioners attempt to save their honor by pleading they were “bound by the mandate” given them.  Conceding that “any independent, impartial and objective investigation into a particular conduct during the course of hostilities must of necessity be with reference to all the belligerents involved,” they then devote two incoherent paragraphs to the argument that they somehow met that standard by “taking account” of Hezbollah’s conduct—even though they could not investigate “actions by Hezbollah in Israel.”  (Pars. 14-15, emphasis original).  However, the commissioners’ claim to have given a “broad interpretation” to their mandate (par. 5) is belied by their failure—whatever the justifications—to examine more than one side.

It did not have to be this way.  The commissioners could have followed the example of other UN experts who displayed independence and moral courage by defying the OIC’s subversion of the Human Rights Council and of international human rights law as a whole.  That is what Asma Jahangir did when, as Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion, she was instructed by an OIC-drafted resolution to produce a report on “defamation of religions.”  The OIC expected to coopt her in their year-long campaign at the UN to justify the violence that followed the Danish cartoon controversy.  But Jahangir refused to be used a pawn.  Instead, her report challenged the very premise of the OIC’s instruction by asserting that human rights law protects individuals, not religions—and that “criminalizing defamation of religion can be counter-productive.”  By risking the powerful opposition of the 56-strong Islamic bloc to her next UN candidacy, Jahangir demonstrated why she was recognized by Time Magazine as an “Asian Hero.”

Similarly, a group of four other Council rapporteurs—on health, housing and internally-displaced persons, led by NYU law professor Philip Alston, the expert on extra-judicial executions—showed that they were willing to take on the OIC attempt to subvert the Council for narrow political ends.  Following the August 11 special session that established the one-sided inquiry, these four initiated their own report on alleged Israeli and Hezbollah violations.  For attempting this balance, however, they were lambasted by over 25 OIC and OIC-allied countries when they presented their report to the Council in October.  Alston and his colleagues, like Jahangir, have also now put their UN careers in the crosshairs of the OIC.

In the space of only five months, the Human Rights Council—by devoting 100% of its censures (in four resolutions and three special sessions) to condemning Israel, and none to the rest of the world, including the genocide in Darfur and gross violations in China, Myanmar and Sri Lanka—has already earned its place in history’s hall of infamy.  Joining them now, through their contribution to the further subversion of the Council and international human rights law, are commissioners João Clemente Baena Soares of Brazil, Mohamed Chande Othman of Tanzania, and Stelios Perrakis of Greece.
Following is the UN Watch submission that the commissioners summarily noted in an annex but entirely ignored in the content of their report.
Click for full UN Watch Submission to Lebanon Inquiry

Human Rights Council
Commission of Inquiry on Lebanon
c/o Ms. Maggie Nicholson, Secretary
United Nations Office Geneva
Palais des Nations, Room A-580
1211 Geneva

October 20, 2006

Dear Messrs. Soares, Perrakis, and Othman,

As requested by Ms. Nicholson’s September 22 letter, enclosed please find materials relevant to your inquiry into the recent conflict in Lebanon. It was announced that you have already gathered information on alleged Israeli violations. The attached materials, from credible sources including leading non-governmental organizations, document Hezbollah violations during the conflict and thus provide a needed supplement.

Although resolution S-2/1 speaks only of Israeli violations, this in no way prevents you from considering the context of the conflict and making a balanced examination of both sides. Indeed, principles of fundamental justice require that you do just that.

Such an examination would not be unprecedented. The Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, whose mandate also refers only to Israeli violations, has recognized that consideration of the full picture is not only possible, but required. As he wrote in his most recent annual report, “[t]he Special Rapporteur’s mandate does not extend to human rights violations committed by the Palestinian Authority. It would, however, be irresponsible for a human rights special rapporteur to allow the execution of Palestinian prisoners to go unnoticed. . .”

Likewise, we appeal to your sense of professionalism and integrity in the hope that you will not allow the gross violations of Hezbollah to go unnoticed. Only by providing a full and balanced analysis will your inquiry commission be able to credibly contribute to the cause of peace in the Middle East, and to restoring the reputation of the Council.

Sincerely,

Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director

Enclosures

Index of Documents

United Nations documents

Government Reports

Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) reports

News media articles

Click for full UN Watch Submission to Lebanon Inquiry

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Geneva, November 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

The post UN Rights Council Special Session Condemns Israel appeared first on UN Watch.

Analysis: With the horrors of World War II and the Nazi extermination plan of global Jewry still fresh in the minds of their signatories, the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 were established to protect civilians and wounded in time of war. The reconvening of signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention (on the protection of civilians), for an extraordinary meeting to condemn Israel, sets a dangerous precedent in the politicization of international humanitarian law. Israel is the only state that has ever been targeted for a special reconvening, first on 15 July 1999 and the second time, today. Despite the terrible toll on civilians of conflicts in Rwanda, Bosnia, Sudan, and Congo, no attempt was made to hold a meeting on the Fourth Geneva Convention in those cases. Such selective application calls into question the impartiality and genuine humanitarian concerns required of such international instruments.

The Swiss Department of Foreign Affairs has stated clearly why this meeting will take place. In their letter to the High Contracting Parties, the Swiss explain that the meeting will be held “[f]ollowing a request by the States Parties members of the League of Arab States.” The Arab League claims that the High Contracting Parties have the obligation to take action against Israel, because Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention calls on signatories to “respect and ensure respect” for the Convention. This article, however, was intended as a demand that states ensure respect for the Convention by their own agents, not as a principle of relations between states. Jean Pictet, a former official of the International Committee of the Red Cross, explained the term “ensure respect” in the American Journal of International Law as implementation of domestic legislation.

There is no basis in the Fourth Geneva Convention for meetings to examine specific cases. Proponents of the reconvening will argue that there is nothing which prevents such a meeting. They are wrong. The ICRC has taken a clear position on reconvening the High Contracting Parties in its explanation of Article 7 of the first Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions.  Article 7 states: “The depository of the Protocol shall convene a meeting of the High Contracting Parties, at the request of one or more of the said Parties, to consider general problems concerning the Additional Protocol” (emphasis added). In its comment on the “Object and Purpose of the  Meeting,” the ICRC states, “With the expression ‘general problems’, the Conference wished to exclude the discussion of specific situations” (emphasis added). The possibility of convening the High Contracting Parties for a conference to address a specific situation was clearly related by a previous conference on the Geneva Conventions, whose First Committee specifically approved, by vote, the inclusion of the word “general.”

This meeting marks a step backwards for the rule of law. Those states which chose not to participate in this farce are to be congratulated.

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