Media Worldwide Turn to UN Watch for Analysis & Comment
In response to the massacre in Libya, UN Watch — for years a lone voice urging the United Nations to stop legitimizing the regime — has assumed a leadership role in mobilizing world pressure against the heinous crimes of Moammar Qaddafi and his henchmen. Last week, UN Watch rallied 70 human rights groups to demand UN action, and has continued non-stop activity. To see the chronology of UN Watch’s successful campaign to expel Qaddafi from the UN Human Rights Council, click here.
As a result, the world’s media have turned to UN Watch. In the past week, UN Watch experts appeared on Al Jazeera English TV, Television Suisse Romande, Melbourne Talk Radio, Bulgarian National Radio, and Televisione Svizzera di Lingua Italiana. UN Watch analysis and comment were quoted by Reuters, the Associated Press, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, United Press International, Radio Free Europe, Deutsche Welle, Al Arabiya, FOX News, World Radio Switzerland, Die Zeit, Russia’s ITAR-TASS, an op-ed in the Providence Journal-Bulletin, Washington’sThe Hill, EurActiv, The Jerusalem Post, Canada’s National Post, Kuwait News Agency, The EU Observer, Russia’s Svoboda News, Hungary’s Magyar Távirati Iroda news agency, and Indonesia’s Kedaulatan Rakyat. See sample quotes below.
“C’est une première pour ce Conseil des Droit de l’Homme qui est en général frileux à agir et silencieux sur certaines violations des droits de l’homme. Il faut savoir que beaucoup d’Etats membres du Conseil rentrent dans ce Conseil plus pour éviter les critiques que pour réellement agir pour les droits de l’homme.” — Interview with Arielle Herzog, UN Watch Director of Special Programs, on Television Suisse Romande (in French), Feb. 25, 2011
“The presence of Libya at the Human Rights Council is an insult to human rights” — Interview with Leon Saltiel, UN Watch Deputy Director, on Swiss Italian TV RSI-1, Feb. 22, 2011.
“‘We appreciate that the EU incorporated our 
requests for an international investigation and for keeping the issue on the council’s agenda in the upcoming March and June sessions. Yet the draft unacceptably falls short of condemning Moammar Gaddafi, and fails to call for Libya’s removal from the council,’ said Hillel Neuer from UN Watch…”“ — Valentina Pop, “EU wary of imposing sanctions on Libyan dictator,” EUobserver, Feb. 24, 2011. more…
“’First, the moral outrage of Libya’s membership on the world’s top human rights body must end immediately. Even the Arab League ejected Libya,’ said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. ‘With bodies piling up on the streets of Libya, the EU and the international community must not stay silent on this pernicious moral hypocrisy,’”— Tovah Lazaroff, “UN Rights Council to hold special session on Libya,” Jerusalem Post, Feb. 24, 2011. more…
“‘We urge the council to call for Libya’s removal, which would then be effected by a two-thirds vote of the U.N. General Assembly,’ said Hillel Neuer, executive director of Geneva-based U.N. Watch.”— Frank Jordans, “EU pushing for independent UN-led probe of Libya killings, rights abuses,” The Associated Press, Feb. 23, 2011. more…
“Geneva-based U.N. Watch, with the help of Mohamed Eljahmi, has put together An Urgent Appeal to World Leaders to Prevent Atrocities in Libya. It goes beyond expressions of dismay, to urge that the U.N. actually enlist its Human Rights Council to defend human rights for a change…”— Claudia Rosett, “Help resist Gadhafi’s bloody crackdown,” Providence Journal-Bulletin, Feb. 23, 2011. more…
“One activist group, U.N. Watch, immediately dismissed the draft for failing to single-out Gaddafi or his security forces directly or demand Libya’s expulsion from the Council, to which it was elected by African countries last year…” – Robert Evans, “Split UN rights council may scupper Libya inquiry,”Reuters, Feb. 23, 2011. more…
“An international coalition of 70 rights groups is urging the United States and the European Union to suspend Libya from its membership in the Human Rights Council…The coalition includes the Geneva-based UN Watch…” – Nikola Krastev, “UN Security Council Condemns Libya Violence,” Radio Free Europe, Feb. 23, 2011. more…
“‘The council must take action under Article 8 of its founding charter and issue a finding that Libya is committing gross and systematic violations of human rights, and call for the regime to be suspended by the General Assembly,’ said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer. ‘With bodies piling up on the streets of Libya, the EU and the international community must not stay silent on this pernicious moral hypocrisy,'” — “UN Watch disappointed from the EU draft resolution for the Human rights,” Kuwait News Agency, Feb. 23, 2011. more…
“’The muted response of the US and the EU to the Libyan atrocities is not only a let-down to the many Libyans risking their lives for freedom, but a shirking of their obligations, as members of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council, to protect peace and human rights and to prevent war crimes,’ said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.”— Tovah Lazaroff, “70 rights groups call on UN to condemn Tripoli,” Jerusalem Post, Feb. 22, 2011. more…
“Some 70 human rights groups called for immediate international action ‘to halt the mass atrocities now being perpetrated by the Libyan government against its own people’…The signatories included the U.S.-based National Endowment for Democracy, Physicians for Human Richts, Geneva-based UN Watch, and groups from many other countries.” — Edith M. Lederer, “Key Libyan diplomats disown Gadhafi’s regime,” The Associated Press, Feb. 22, 2011. more…
“The ‘responsibility to protect’ doctrine was a Canadian innovation. The human rights coalition waging the campaign to force the UN to invoke the doctrine is led by Canadian Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch in Geneva.” — Terry Glavin, “The human rights community wakens to Libya” National Post, Feb. 22, 2011. more…
“The rights group UN Watch issued a message urging citizens to put pressure on decision-makers to react more strongly against the violence in Libya. The statement reads: ‘Artillery and helicopter gunships were used against crowds…Women and children in the city of Benghazi were seen jumping off a bridge to escape.'” —“EU calls for ‘dialogue’ in Libya amid US warnings,” EurActiv, Feb. 21, 2011. more…
“Geneva human rights group UN Watch…is one of 24 non-governmental organizations that have sent a letter to U.S., EU and U.N. authorities, urging a bolder stance against the violence in Libya.” — Stefan Nicola, “Europe steps up pressure on Libya,” United Press International, Feb. 21, 2011. more…
“‘These actions constitute a widespread and systematic policy and practice of atrocities… which reach the threshold of crimes against humanity,’ said the groups, which include UN Watch and the National Endowment for Democracy and Physicians for Human Rights, which won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.” — “Groups call for UN to hold urgent human rights meeting on Libya,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Feb. 21, 2011. more…
“‘The muted response of the US and the EU to the Libyan atrocities is not only a let-down to the many Libyans risking their lives for freedom, but a shirking of their obligations, as members of the Security Council and the Human Rights Council, to protect peace and human rights, and to prevent war crimes,’ said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch…” – Bridget Johnson, “Human-rights groups urge Rice to convene Security Council on Libya,”The Hill, Feb. 21, 2011. more…
“Even as of Monday evening, as protesters were being shot down in the streets of Libya, no emergency session of the HRC had been called by its members, which include the US and the EU, as Hillel Neuer, the executive director of UN Watch, noted…”—Editorial, “The UN’s Libya failures,” Jerusalem Post, Feb. 21, 2011. more…
“U.N. Watch’s Hillel Neuer helped pen an appeal by human rights organizations — ‘Urgent Appeal to World Leaders to Prevent Atrocities in Libya’ — for concrete U.N. action to end the violence in Libya.” — Jonathan Wachtel, “U.N. Criticized for Slow Response to Libya Unrest,” Fox News, Feb. 21, 2011. more…
Chronology: The NGO Campaign to Remove Libya From the UN Human Rights Council
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May 2010: UN Watch leads 37 NGOs in a protest on the eve of Libya’s election to the UNHRC, with a widely covered media event at UN Headquarters in New York, and a mass email campaign. Countries are urged to oppose Qaddafi’s candidacy. Instead, in a secret ballot, the UN elects Libya by a landslide of 155 out of 192 UNGA votes. UN Watch warns on Swiss TV that Qaddafi’s government is a “murderous and racist regime.” Not a single country speaks out against Libya’s candidacy or election.
- September 2010: Libya takes its seat at the council. UN Watch launches a global campaign, supported by 30 NGOs, and victims of Libyan abuses, to remove the Qaddafi regime. To confront the Libyans in the plenary UN Watch brings Bob Monetti, whose 20-year-old son was murdered in Libya’s 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103; Mohamed Eljahmi, brother of slain dissident Fathi Eljahmi; Kristyana Valcheva, one of the five Bulgarian nurses who were framed, imprisoned and tortured for eight years on false charges of poisoning children with HIV; and Ashraf El-Hajouj, the Palestinian doctor framed and tortured together with the nurses. The Libyans and their allied regimes rudely interrupt the speakers. The incident and the victims’ appeal to remove Libya is widely covered by dedicated stories in Voice of America and Agence France Presse, and by a cover story in Sweden’s Neo magazine.“The HRC grants legitimacy to ‘murderous’ Gadaffi regime,”reported Radio Netherlands on UN Watch’s campaign. Yet the UN council and its member states stay silent.
- November 2010: When Libya’s abysmal human rights record is addressed under the council’s universal review procedure, UN Watch renews its call for the Qaddafi regime to be removed. The appeal is reported by Germany’s DPA, Swissinfo and elsewhere. Yet the UN council and its member states stay silent.
- February 21, 2011: Working closely with Libyan dissident Mohamed Eljahmi — who sounds the alarm on massive atrocities being committed by the Qaddafi regime — UN Watch spearheads an international appeal by 70 human rights groups to remove Libya. The plea for UN action is covered around the world. Three days later, the EU requests a special session of the Human Rights Council, but fails to contest Libya’s council membership.
- February 23, 2011: UN Watch publicly calls on EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton, and the governments of France, Germany, and the UK, to demand Libya’s removal from the council.
- February 24, 2011: Finally, for the first time in the council’s five-year history, the EU calls for the suspension of a council member — Libya — on grounds of committing gross and systematic human rights violations. The resolution is unanimously adopted by the council on Feb. 25. It’s now up to the UN General Assembly to finally suspend Libya from the council. The vote is scheduled for tomorrow, March 1st.
UN Watch has been the leading voice at the United Nations challenging Libyan human rights abuses for many years. To see compelling YouTube videos, click here.
