SG Ban Ki-moon honours PermReps who have served @UN longer than ten years at ceremony International Association of Permanent Representatives pic.twitter.com/CPYeCDdWuR

— Karel van Oosterom (@KvanOosterom) October 24, 2016

Ban Ki-moon pinning the awards:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Cake honoring Syrian envoy and his colleagues:

 
 

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We salute @UN peace envoy @nmladenov for condemning terror attack against Israelis & calling out Hamas incitement. pic.twitter.com/DXJzEp3lqi

— UN Watch (@UNWatch) June 8, 2016

UN Watch tweeted Mladenov’s statement to Stéphane Dujarric, Ban Ki-moon’s spokesperson:

.@UN_Spokesperson Why is Ban Ki-moon silent? Why can't he immediately condemn Palestinian terror as did this UN rep? https://t.co/sKxsIgYTLB

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) June 8, 2016

Fortunately, the spokesperson soon after issued a statement reflecting the same sentiments, featured below.

_________

Source: https://www.un.org/sg/statements/index.asp?nid=9783

Statement attributable to the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General on terrorist attack in Tel Aviv

New York, 8 June 2016
The Secretary-General condemns tonight’s terrorist attack in Tel Aviv in which at least four Israelis were killed by Palestinian assailants and another four injured. He conveys his condolences to the families of the victims and the Government of Israel.
The Secretary-General reiterates that there is no justification for terrorism nor for the glorification of those who commit such heinous acts.
The Secretary-General is shocked that the leaders of Hamas have chosen to welcome this attack and some have chosen to celebrate it. He calls upon the Palestinian leadership to live up to their responsibility to stand firmly against violence and the incitement that fuels it.

The post Rare: UN chief rebukes Hamas leaders for celebrating Tel Aviv terror attack appeared first on UN Watch.

GENEVA, April 3, 2016 – UN Watch sent the following letter today to UN chief Ban Ki-moon.  Click for PDF

Dear Mr. Secretary-General,

UN Watch is alarmed to see that no less than three United Nations agencies are funding a Palestinian organization which glorifies the terrorist Baha Alyan who shot and stabbed Richard Lakin, the 78-year-old American-Israeli peace activist whom you yourself visited in his hospital bed in October, and who later died from his wounds.

According to Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, “Dozens of female activists and mothers took part in a chain of readers to commemorate Martyr Baha Alyan […] in the presence of the Martyr’s parents. The activity was held in Ibn Rashed square in the center of Hebron, by the Rural Women’s Development Society…” (Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, March 22, 2016, as translated by Palestinian Media Watch.)

The organizer of this sickening commemoration of a murderer, the “Rural Women’s Development Society,” acknowledges on its website that its funders include three UN agencies: UNDP, the United Nations Population Fund and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

We urge you to condemn the UN funding of this terrorism-supporting organization, and to take immediate action to end it.

Sincerely,

Hillel Neuer
Executive Director
UN Watch

The post Issue 583: UN Funds Palestinian NGO That Glorifies Murderer of Peace Activist appeared first on UN Watch.

Ten Questions for Ban Ki-moon as He Visits Canada Today

As UN chief Ban Ki-moon today continues his high-profile visit to Canada with an address at McGill University, UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, a graduate of McGill, invited students to ask the secretary-general 10 basic questions concerning UN actions over the past year, which new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not appear to have asked yesterday:
10: If the UN supports women’s rights, why did they elect mysoginistic Iran to the board of UN Women?
9: Given warnings of genocide by Burundi, why did the UN just elect that regime as a member of its Human Rights Council?
8: If the UN cares about children’s rights, why did they cover up peacekeepers’ rape of children in Central African Republic—and then punish and suspend Anders Kompass, the one official who tried to stop the abuse?
7: If the UN believes in ethics and good government, why was UN General Assembly past president John Ashe just arrested, in the words of the U.S. Attorney, for having “sold himself and the global institution he led” by allegedly pocketing more than $1 million in bribes to finance a luxury spending spree, which included Rolex watches, custom suits, a BMW, and a private basketball court?
6: If the UN cares about genocide, why did UNESCO recently elect genocidal Sudan to a leadership post?
5: If the UN Charter believes in equality and proportionality, why did the UN General Assembly condemn Israel 20 times last year, with only 3 resolutions for the rest of the world combined?
4: Why was Algerian dipomat Idriss Jazairy, who notoriously campaigned to muzzle UN rights experts, himself elected a UN rights expert?
3: After the deadly Islamist terror attacks in Paris, why did UN expert Alfred de Zayas try to blame France and the West?
2. Why on Feb. 25th is the UN planning to reelect Syria to a leadership post on the Decolonization Committee, whose purpose is to end the “subjugation of peoples”?
1: Why did the UN recently elect Saudi Arabia to behead of a UN Human Rights Council panel that names human rights experts?
More

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“Do Not Spread A False Report”:
Open Letter to U.N. Chief Ban Ki-Moon Ahead of His Synagogue Visit

 Dear U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,
Tomorrow when you attend synagogue to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day—after two weeks when you singled out Israel at the Security Council and in the New York Times—I hope you will pay heed to the following verses of Exodus in the weekly Bible portion that will be read out before the congregation:

“Do not spread a false report… Do not follow the crowd to do evil; neither shall you testify in a dispute by siding with the multitude to pervert justice.” (Exodus XXIII)

As you begin your 10th year as Secretary-General of the United Nations, I hope you reflect upon these words, and on how your conduct has changed over time.
Because I remember when, during your first year in office, in 2007, you admirably criticized the Human Rights Council after it decided to permanently single out Israel under a special agenda item at every one of its meetings. You were sharply rebuked for this by the 56-strong Islamic group.
Today, perhaps because you have been stung by such rebukes from the multitude that dominates your organization—including the 120-strong Non-Aligned Movement, now chaired by Iran—too often your own actions, and those carried out by U.N. officials under your command, spread false reports, follow the crowd to do evil, and deliver testimony that perverts justice.
Let us begin by your remarks last week to the Security Council. Though you started by saying that you condemned Palestinian stabbings, car attacks and shootings against Israelis, you swiftly absolved the terrorists of any moral responsibility by saying “it is human nature to react to occupation.”
Going further, you drew a narrative in which Palestinian “alienation,” “despair,” and “frustration” are “driving” the murder of Israelis. You chastised Israel for “provocative acts,” some of which you described as “an affront to the Palestinian people.”
No, Mr. Secretary General. It was not “human nature” for Palestinians, in the week preceding your UN remarks, to stab to death Dafna Meir, a mother of six children, outside her home; to stab Michal Froman, a pregnant woman; or to stab Shlomit Krigman, a 23-year-old university graduate, who died from her wounds on the day of your testimony.
The truth is that Palestinian youth are being incited day and night to murder Israelis. While you did say that “incitement has no place,” you deliberately refused to condemn the perpetrators, omitting any mention of the Palestinian Authority, its president Mahmoud Abbas, or Fatah, all of of whom have glorified the murderers of Israelis as “martyrs.”
Likewise, while you condemned the firing of rockets into Israel, you again noticeably declined to name Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or its leaders, sufficing instead with a generic reference to anonymous “militant groups.”
Doubling down, you then published an unprecedented New York Times op-ed last Sunday which repeated the same one-sided charges, pointing the finger at “senior members of Israel’s government.” Hamas and Abbas again went unmentioned.
Instead of making excuses for terrorists, you ought to learn courage from Muslims like Lucy Aharish, an Arab Israeli journalist, who, unlike you, has unequivocally condemned Arab leaders’ incitement to kill in the name of Islam, saying, “I refuse to accept excuses of frustration.”
As noted by Herb Keinon of the Jerusalem Post, none of your 85 op-eds of the past decade have gone after a specific country in this fashion. China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other regimes, all get a free pass.
Instead, your 2007 op-ed on Darfur actually commended President Omar al-Bashir—the same man who is wanted by the ICC for genocide in Darfur—for his “unqualified commitment to support the peacekeeping mission.” And in the samne article you found reason to shower praise on Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi for “generously” offering to host peace talks, and for his “remarkable” water pipeline. What a perversion of truth!
U.N.’s Own Record
Mr. Secretary-General, neither Israel nor any other government is above criticism. But it’s time for you to consider that Palestinians must be held morally responsible for their own actions, and not infantilized.
It’s time for you to consider that Palestinian anger might also be a consequence of oppression by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority—both of them dictatorial governments—just as hundreds of millions of other Arabs and Muslims throughout the Middle East, as the world suddenly learned five years ago during the Arab Spring, have been oppressed by their own regimes.
It’s time for you to consider that Israel is not the problem in the Middle East, which is sinking into chaos because of ideologies of ignorance, medievalism and death; and that, on the contrary, having more Middle East societies like open-minded, innovative and democratic Israel is the solution.
Most importantly, you ought to consider your own organization’s role in all of this.
When was the last time that you spoke out against the demonization of Israelis that pervades the resolutions and debates of the U.N. General Assembly, UNESCO, and the Human Rights Council?
When last year the GA condemned Israel in 20 one-sided resolutions that gave a free pass to Hamas—with only three resolutions on the rest of the world combined—why were you silent?
When Hamas terrorists fired thousands of rockets at Israel in the summer of 2014, and the U.N.’s highest human rights body held an emergency session that condemned Israel 18 times and Hamas 0 times, why were you silent?
When that same body created a biased commission of inquiry headed by William Schabas, a life-long anti-Israel activist who did paid legal work for the PLO, why were you silent?
When the upcoming March session of the Human Rights Council is planning to hold yet another follow-up debate on the discredited 2009 Goldstone Report — even though Goldstone long ago retracted the core charge of that report — why are you silent?
When UN Watch revealed last year that the Goldstone Report’s key author—whom your Geneva staff deliberately hired—was in fact a rabid Hamas supporter, Grietje Baars, who served as European spokeswoman for the Gaza Flotilla of 2010, and who dedicated her life to prosecuting Israelis for alleged war crimes, why were you silent? Why are you not launching an investigation into this fundamental breach of U.N. neutrality?
When the UNHRC is planning next month to name a new Special Rapporteur into “Israel’s violations of the bases and principles of international law,” a one-sided mandate that looks only at Israeli actions and presumes guilt in advance, why are you silent?
Mr. Secretary-General, your op-ed was entitled “Don’t shoot the messenger, Israel.” Perhaps you ought to consider that the U.N. is not a messenger here, but a key actor; and that, too often, your organization’s actions encourage, enable and legitimize terrorism.
If you unequivocally condemn terrorism that strikes French, American, and Nigerian victims, without expressing sympathy and understanding with the alleged grievances of the murderers, you should do no different when the victims are Israelis.
I conclude again with the words of the Bible:

“Do not spread a false report… Do not follow the crowd to do evil; neither shall you testify in a dispute by siding with the multitude to pervert justice.”

Sincerely,
Hillel C. Neuer
Executive Director
UN Watch

 _________________________

 
 U.N. Majority Censors Group Seeking Human Rights in Vietnam
Only Greece, Israel, U.S. & Uruguay Defend Free Speech
The UN’s 19-member committee that oversees non-governmental organizations voted overwhelmingly to silence a human rights group fighting oppression in Vietnam, in violation of the UN’s own freedom of expression and association guarantees under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The vote was 13-4, with only Greece, Israel, the U.S. and Uruguay voting to support the human rights group.
Those voting to censor the group were: Azerbaijan, Burundi, China, Cuba, India, Iran, Mauritania, Nicaragua, Pakistan, South Africa, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela. Russia abstained, while Guinea was absent. More

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“Louise Arbour, a former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, went even further in her de-Judaization of the Holocaust. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2010, she gave a lecture to the Dutch Auschwitz Committee entitled ‘Auschwitz Never Again.’ There she mentioned the words ‘Shoah’ and ‘Holocaust’ a number of times, yet managed to avoid saying the word ‘Jew.’ Anyone who knew little about the subject would not have learned from her that the Holocaust had involved the mass murder of Jews. Her four-year tenure at the UNHRC led UN Watch to conclude that ‘She failed…to address President Ahmadinejad’s anti-Semitic campaign of Holocaust denial and incitement to genocide.'” Algemeiner, “The Broader Framework of Trudeau’s Holocaust Distortion”, Feb. 3, 2016

 
 
“Hillel Neuer, executive director of U.N. Watch – a Geneva-based non-governmental organization that monitors the HRC – said Ban should have condemned the Venezuelan government rather than congratulate it on winning a new term on the council.” CNS, “U.N. Chief Ban Ki-moon ‘Congratulates’ Venezuela on Re-Election to Human Rights Council,” Jan. 21, 2016
    

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Press Release from the Government Accountability Project

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
WASHINGTON, April 8, 2015 – Today, a group of nine whistleblowers from the U.N. system sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and the Directors of U.N. Specialized Agencies urging them to do more to protect whistleblowers.
The letter claims that whistleblower policies in the U.N. system “afford little to no measure of real or meaningful protection for whistleblowers” and that “fear of reporting wrongdoing is widespread.” According to the letter, the “UN system of justice fails whistleblowers.”
The signatories worked for various agencies and programs within the U.N. system, including the U.N. Secretariat, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), U.N. Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and U.N. Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat). They exposed serious wrongdoing, gross misconduct and even criminal acts within the United Nations system and faced retaliation as a result. According to the letter, their experience shows that “retaliation against whistleblowers affects the entire U.N. system and goes largely unchecked at all levels, including in the Executive suites.”
Some of the letter’s key demands of the Secretary-General and the heads of UN agencies include:

• Recognizing that whistleblower rights are human rights, which must be promoted and protected within the U.N. system.
• Reviewing whistleblower protection for U.N. staff and for those serving in affiliated specialized agencies and international organisations   not protected by national laws.
• Submitting the proposed revisions to the U.N. Secretariat protection against retaliation policy for public consultation.
• Ending immediately the practice of subjecting U.N. whistleblowers to lengthy internal appeals processes for contesting the loss of their job or other adverse employment decisions.
• Establishing an external independent mechanism for claims of retaliation against U.N. whistleblowers and provide regular reports to the U.N. General Assembly.
• Providing an external arbitration option for all whistleblowers.
• Recognizing that whistleblowers are vulnerable across the U.N. system, possibly for the duration of their careers, and providing them with appropriate psychological support and counseling, as well as career development.

The whistleblowers claim that without such reforms, wrongdoing at the U.N. will be unreported and will continue to go unchecked. They conclude that this will “damage the UN’s moral standing and, ultimately, its legitimacy.”
The Government Accountability Project (GAP), the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization, supports the reforms proposed by the whistleblowers and signed-on to the letter.
“Numerous U.N. organizations fail to protect employees who expose misconduct from retaliation,” said Bea Edwards, GAP Executive Director and International Program Director. “We call on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and directors of U.N. agencies to address this problem and to vigorously enforce their own anti-retaliation policies.”
A copy of the letter is available here.
Contact: Andrew Harman
Email: AndrewH@whistleblower.org
Phone: (202) 457-0034 ext. 156
Contact: Shelley Walden, International Program Consultant
Email: shelleyw@whistleblower.org
 Government Accountability Project
The Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
 
 
UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information.

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Palestinian UN delegation tried to fire Richard Falk for Hamas support, froze his report; today is his last day

In reaction to Falk’s April 19, 2013 justification of the Boston Marathon terrorist attacks, UN chief Ban Ki-moon‘s spokesman said: “The Secretary-General rejects Mr. Falk’s comments” which “undermine the credibility and the work of the United Nations.” Click here for sources.

The British Mission to the United Nations also condemned Mr. Falk’s April 19, 2013 remarks on the Boston bombing as racist, highlighting it was the third time the British Government had to do so.

CONDEMNED FOR SUPPORTING 9/11 CONPIRACY THEORISTS

Falk is one of the world’s most high-profile supporters of the leading 9/11 conspiracy theorists, lending his name to those who accuse the U.S. government of orchestrating the destruction of the Twin Towers as a pretext to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Falk has actively promoted the writings of David Ray Griffin, a disciple and close friend of Falk who has produced 12 books describing the World Trade Center attack as “an inside job.”

Falk not only contributed the Foreword to Griffin’s 2004 “The New Pearl Harbor”—praising the author’s “patience,” “fortitude,” “courage,” and “intelligence”—but Griffin credits Falk for getting the book published, and also specially thanks Falk’s wife, Hilal Elver, top nominee this week to be named a UN human rights council expert on hunger. Elver quotes Griffin in her scholarly essays. 

In 2011 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon took the floor of the Human Rights Council to issue an unprecedented condemnation of Falk’s 9/11 remarks, saying they were “preposterous” and “an affront to the memory of the more than 3,000 people who died in that tragic terrorist attack”;

U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice in 2011 denounced Falk’s comments as “despicable and deeply offensive,” and condemned Falk’s “one-sided and politicized approach,” saying his words were “so noxious that it should finally be plain to all that he should no longer continue in his position,” and that “the cause of human rights will be better advanced without Mr. Falk and the distasteful sideshow he has chosen to create.”

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• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 25 March 1998, said that “Israel [is] the only Member State that is not a member of one of the regional groups…This anomaly should be corrected. We must uphold the principle of equality among all United Nations Member States.”
•  Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 12 December 1999 remarked that “the exclusion of Israel from the system of regional groupings [and] the intense focus given to some of Israel’s actions, while other situations sometimes fail to elicit the similar outrage […] have given a regrettable impression of bias and one-sidedness.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in regard to Israel’s exclusion from a regional group, said that “we must uphold the principle of equality among Member States. I shall keep encouraging all concerned to find a solution.”
• Late UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio de Mello in Geneva advocated the inclusion of Israel in the Western group, lobbying ambassadors.
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 15 March 2005 spoke of the “need to correct a long-standing anomaly that kep tIsrael from participating fully and equally in the work of the Organization” by including Israel as member of the Western European and Others Group in Geneva.
• Sir Robert Jennings, QC, former President of the International Court of Justice, wrote that “Israel’s exclusion from the regional group system places the UN in breach of its fundamental obligations regarding sovereign equality and is thus illegal… The need now to redress it is urgent.”

Biased Agenda Item and Resolutions

• UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on 20 June 2007 criticized “the Council decision to single out Israel as the only specific regional item on its agenda, given the range and scope of allegations of human rights violations throughout the world.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 25 March 1998 said that “I know that Israelis see hypocrisy and double standards in the intense scrutiny given to some of its actions, while other situations fail to elicit the world’s outrage and condemnations.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his message to the Human Rights Council on 29 November 2006, expressed the hope that the Council would deal with the Middle East issue “in an impartial way” and “not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of others where there are equally grave or even graver violations.”
• Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, addressing the Security Council on 12 December 2006, remarked “I believe the actions of some UN bodies may themselves be counterproductive. The Human Rights Council, for example, has already held three special sessions focused on the Arab-Israeli conflict. I hope the Council will take care to handle the issue in an impartial way, and not allow it to monopolize attention at the expense of other situations where there are no less grave violations, or even worse.”

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