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MEDIA IMPACT: Newsweek magazine published a UN Watch Letter to the Editor opposing Iran and other rogue regimes for misusing the UN’s podium… Forbes quoted UN Watch on the hypocrisy of the UN Human Rights Council… The Associated Press and leading Brazilian daily Estadao de Sao Paulo featured UN Watch’s critique of the wasteful Council session on Haiti, provoking sharp protests from the Brazilian government, which had initiated the event… The Chicago Sun Times and The Jerusalem Post previewed UN Watch’s upcoming 2010 Report Card on the performance of the Council, and reported on UN Watch’s testimony before the U.S. Congress last week... UN Watch videos on YouTube have now been viewed more than 1 million times… UN Watch’s new Facebook page already has more than 5,000 fans… See quotes below. For more, see unwatch.org/inthenews.
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Letters
February 22, 2010, International Edition
‘End of the Rogue’
Dear Editor,
If sanctions fail to stop rogue regimes, Nader Mousavizadeh is right that we should take aim at their illegitimacy—their “true Achilles’ heel.”
One place to start would be the United Nations. Increasingly, rulers who routinely breach the U.N. Charter’s principles of freedom, equality, and nonviolence are using the world body to win credibility and prestige.
Although the Islamic Republic of Iran discriminates against Arabs, Azeris, Bahais, Baluchis, and Kurds, the U.N. chose it as vice chair of the planning committee of the 2009 World Conference Against Racism. Then the U.N. allowed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to deliver the opening speech.
By denying rogues such legitimacy, the U.N. will help victims of tyranny, weaken aggressors, and improve its own reputation.
Hillel Neuer
Executive Director
U.N. Watch
Geneva, Switzerland
Copyright 2010, Newsweek.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/233434
“The U.N. Human Rights Council has yet to issue a single resolution condemning Iran, or appoint an investigator, or hold a single special session on Tehran’s brutalities. At U.N. Watch, a nongovernmental watchdog in Geneva, executive director Hillel Neuer keeps a tally of activities at the council — where current membership already includes such abusers as Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Neuer says that since the council was launched in mid-2006, it has issued 33 condemnatory resolutions. Of these, half a dozen have concerned Burma and North Korea. The other 27 have focused on condemning Israel, while absolving its attackers, including the Iranian-backed terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah…”
— C. Rosett, “Don’t let Iran on the Human Rights Council,” Forbes, February 11, 2010.
“Activist group U.N. Watch has described the council’s two-day special session on Haiti as ‘a harmful waste of the organization’s precious time, resources, and moral capital.’ U.N. Watch says the council ‘has no budget, authority or expertise on humanitarian aid’ and ignores more pressing human rights problems….”
— “UN Rights Body Concerned For Haiti’s Children,” Associated Press, Jan. 28, 2010.
“For the NGO UN Watch, the meeting today is a ‘waste of time, resources and moral capital of the United Nations… It will not feed or heal one Haitian. Rather, it will waste $200,000 (in organizing the event) that could be used for other purposes,’ said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the organization. He said the event was desgined so that that the Council could pretend it is doing something, while violations in Iran, Cuba and China would go unpunished…”
— J. Chade, “Haiti rejeita proposta brasileira na ONU,” Estadao de Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest daily, Jan. 27, 2010.
“Unfortunately, what we’ve seen in the last decade and longer is the politicization of the Commission on Human Rights and now its replacement, the Human Rights Council…”
–– UN Watch Chair Alfred Moses, quoted in E.B. Solomont, “NGO: UNHRC gives impunity to violators,” The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 26, 2010.
“Thanks to a just-released report by U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based monitor of the United Nations, we know the UN Human Rights Council has not introduced, much less adopted, a single resolution condemning Iran. Nor has it held a single special session on the crisis. Nor has it mandated any investigations…”
— Steve Huntley, “Guess who missed Iran’s atrocities?,” Chicago Sun-Times, February 26, 2010.
“If the Human Rights Council is serious about tackling Iran’s wide-scale and escalating attacks on its own citizens – and this an open question – then it must use the tools at its disposal to convene an emergency session; adopt a resolution condemning the violations and establishing an international inquiry into Iran’s post-election arrests, rapes, show trials and executions; and reinstate the permanent post of a special rapporteur to monitor and report on the Iranian government’s compliance with international human right covenants…”
— UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer quoted in Tovah Lazaroff, “Iran under fire at UNHRC,” The Jerusalem Post, Feb. 16, 2010.
