Speaking in Arabic and on behalf of UN Watch, Father Gabriel Naddaf of Nazareth intervened during the recent 27th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

Mr. President, I am speaking to you on behalf of UN Watch.

Standing before you is Father Gabriel Naddaf, a Christian citizen from Nazareth, the city in which Christ was raised and where he proselytized.

Dear Sirs, while I stand before you today, the earth of the Middle East is soaked with the blood of Christians being killed daily.

Do you know that at the start of the 20th century, Christians comprised 20% of the population of the Middle East?
Today they comprise only 4%.

Do you know that over the past years some 100,000 Christians have been killed annually? And why? Not for a crime they’ve committed, but only for believing in Christ.

In Iraq alone, more than 77% of the Christians have fled during the year 2000, in addition to thousands killed and expelled.

Some 2 million Christians lived in Syria, but today, they are less than 250,000.

Christians in these countries are treated as second-class citizens; facing racial, religious, economic and social discrimination.

Why is this happening? Only due to their religion, a religion that advocates love and peace between mankind.
Christians in the Middle East are marginalized, their rights denied, their property stolen, their honor violated, their men killed, and their children displaced.

Where will they go? Who will defend them? And who will guard their property?

If we look at the Middle East, Mr. President, we realize there’s only one safe place where Christians are not persecuted.

One place where they are protected, enjoying freedom of worship and expression, living in peace and not subjected to killing and genocide.

It is Israel, the country I live in. The Jewish state is the only place where the Christians of the Holy Land live in safety.

Christians and Jews live in Israel not only because Christ was originally Jewish, born in Jewish Bethlehem, but because they share a common destiny, and a true hope to coexist in peace.

Does the world acknowledge Israel for protecting its Christians? Many in the international community have chosen to criticize Israel.

This, in my mind, is a double crime: because by doing so, the international community helps those striving to annihilate the Jews, the Christians, the Druze and the Yazidis for political ends.

By doing so, the international community unfortunately contributes to exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in the Middle East. It causes Christians to leave the land of Christ searching for a safe haven across the world.

It is time for the world to awaken and realize the truth of those striving to destroy the Jewish state.

They are hastening the death sentence of Christians in the Middle East and the Holy Land, the land which witnessed the birth and life of our Lord Jesus Christ. If they leave, who will remain in it?

I, Father Gabrial Naddaf of Nazareth, stand before you and plead: O world leaders and supporters of peace, stop those who want to destroy the only free Jewish state in the region.

It is the only refuge welcoming and protecting all of its citizens. It is the only place that does not attempt to push out Christians, forcing them to leave their land in search of security.

I implore you from the bottom of my heart to hear the cry of the Christians of the Middle East before it is too late, and you may read about them only in the history books.

Thank you, Mr. President.

The post Nazareth Priest Tells U.N. in Arabic: "Israel is only country in Mideast where Christians live in safety" appeared first on UN Watch.

Above: UN Special Rapporteur on cultural rights Farida Shaheed

What today is preoccupying the UN human rights system?
Not the gross and systematic human rights violations of dictatorships like China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, who were just welcomed back as members of the 47-nation UN Human Rights Council, and whose millions of victims have never once been given their day in court by even a single resolution.
Rather, the UN rights office — as announced in its press release  issued moments ago (see below) — is now devoting its limited time and resources to a major study on “the impact that advertising and marketing practices may have on cultural diversity and the right of people to choose their way of life.”
Farida Shaheed, the “United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights,” got the UN in December to send a diplomatic note to 193 countries to solicit their input.
The 2012 resolution that renewed and upgraded this absurd position was initiated by Cuba, with a list of co-sponsors that included such paragons of cultural rights as Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Zimbabwe. The cost? An estimated $982,800.
The U.S. and Europe, for reasons known only to them, joined consensus.
 

 
UN expert kicks off new study on the impact of advertising and marketing on cultural rights
GENEVA (7 February 2014) – The United Nations Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, Farida Shaheed, is launching a new study on the impact of advertising and marketing practices on cultural rights, with an up-close look at their effect on cultural diversity and human rights.
Ms. Shaheed will be looking at the effect of commercial sponsorship on academic and artistic freedoms, as well as on the content of art museum exhibits, among other issues. Her report will be considered by the UN General Assembly in October this year.
“One underlying problem”, the human rights expert said, “relates to the impact that advertising and marketing practices may have on cultural diversity and the right of people to choose their way of life”.
“The modification of our cultural and symbolic landscapes through billboards or screens, the increasing encroachment of advertising on our public space and the intrusion of advertising in schools and universities are among the concerns I intend to address in this report,” she explained.
The Special Rapporteur has already laid the basis for her study through a first series of meetings with experts in New York. She has also reached out to all UN Member States and other interested parties to seek their views, for example on the use of private data for commercial purposes, the use of neuromarketing or behavioural targeting, and possible regulation to differentiate commercial speech from non-commercial speech.*
“Many ethical and human rights issues are at stake”, Ms. Shaheed stressed. “I am particularly interested in the mechanisms that can ensure a variety of narratives and values in the public space and through mass media, beyond what is often referred to as ‘commercial culture.’”
The Special Rapporteur’s study on the impact of advertising and marketing practices on cultural rights will be made available online in September / October 2014, during the 69th session of the UN General Assembly in New York.
(*) Check the Special Rapporteur’s webpage on the ongoing study, including the questionnaire for all interested stakeholders (deadline: 3 March 2014):
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/CulturalRights/Pages/impactofadvertisingandmarketing.aspx

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Historic U.S.-led initiative backed by UK, France, Germany,
Italy, Spain, Canada, Japan, S. Korea & some Arab countries

GENEVA, Jan. 25 – For the first time in its history, the UN’s culture and education agency is preparing to condemn Syria and expel it from a human rights committee, revealed a Geneva-based human rights organization today, releasing a motion filed by the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Qatar, Kuwait and six other countries, now backed also by Japan and South Korea. Click here for motion and related memo; see text below.

After UNESCO in November elected Syria, which already sits on its 58-member executive board, to a committee that judges human rights complaints, the independent UN Watch monitoring group launched a campaign of 55 parliamentarians, religious groups and human rights activists urging member states to reverse the decision.

In response, according to diplomatic documents obtained exclusively by UN Watch, the U.S., its EU allies, Canada, Japan and a handful of Arab states are now among a growing coalition of countries that is formally requesting an agenda item for next month’s UNESCO board meeting to “review” Syria’s controversial membership.

The initial request to UNESCO, which diplomatic insiders say was initiated by the U.S. delegation in Paris, was signed last month by 14 member states, while several others, including Japan and South Korea, have since added their support.

“What is shocking is how UNESCO ever decided in the first place to legitimize the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—which is shooting its own people in cold blood—by elevating it to a committee that judges human rights issues on a global scale,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

“Our coalition is thankful to Ambassador David T. Killion, the U.S. representative to UNESCO, for his delegation’s leadership in seeking now to reverse this incomprehensible election.”

“I am not  aware that UNESCO has ever before expelled a member state from one of its committees, or passed a resolution condemning Syria, so both actions would be unprecedented, and we hope—for the sake of the Syrian victims—that there will be sufficient support among the 58 UNESCO board members to shame, pressure and weaken this murderous regime,” said Neuer.

The letter by the 14 ambassadors, after invoking calls by a UN inquiry and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, says that “UNESCO must respond to these appeals for concerted action to address the egregious human rights situation in Syria.”

The letter notes that Syria’s membership on UNESCO’s Committee on Conventions and Recommendations allows it to participate “in the examination of cases involving alleged human rights violations.”

“In view of the current situation in Syria, the Executive Board must review the participation of Syria in this aspect of its work.”

“In addition,” the letter states, “in view of documented concerns about the effect of the situation in Syria on its people, including, in particular, children and journalists, the Board should review this situation having reference to other areas of UNESCO’s competence, namely, education, cultural preservation and press freedom.”

Timeline of UN Watch Campaign to Expel Syria from UNESCO

Nov. 11 – UNESCO’s 58-member executive board, including major democracies, unanimously elects Syria to human rights committee.

Nov. 23 – UN Watch breaks the story; urges democracies to reverse Syria’s election; obtains renunciation of Syria’s election by UNESCO director Irina Bokova. The story is reported by CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer,Fox News, and the Tribune de Genève.

Dec. 2 – In testimony before the UN Human Rights Council plenary, UN Watch formally calls on UNESCO to “cancel its recent decision to elect Syria to two separate committees that deal with human rights. Even the head of UNESCO, Irina Bokova, concedes that this is wrong. Her spokesperson told UN Watch: ‘Given the developments in Syria, the director-general does not see how this country can contribute to the work of the committees.'” UN Watch submits the UNHRC condemnation of Syria to UNESCO, requesting Syria be expelled forthwith.

Dec. 15 – UN Watch launches campaign of of 55 parliamentarians, human rights groups and religious groups calling on UNESCO to reverse the election of Syria, and sends appeal to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and UK Foreign Minister William Hague.

Jan. 6 – UN Watch receives notice from the British Foreign Office that it will seek to cancel Syria’s “abhorrent” membership. In an email to UN Watch, the UK said it “deplores the continuing membership of Syria on this committee and does not believe that Syria’s presence is conducive to the work of the body or UNESCO’s reputation. We have therefore joined with other countries in putting forward an item for the first meeting of the Executive Board at which we will seek to explicitly address Syria’s membership of the body.” The UK also expressed hope that other members of the executive board will join London in ending what it called “this abhorrent [and] anomalous situation.”  Al Arabiya, Fox News and the Jerusalem Post report the story.

Jan. 25 – UN Watch obtains an exclusive copy of the motion, memo and member states seeking to condemn and expel Syria.

##############

Below are the letter and memo sent to UNESCO, and list of
supporting states, exclusively obtained by UN Watch

December 14, 2011

Ms. Alissandra Cummins
Chairman of the Executive Board
UNESCO
7 Place de Fontenoy
75353 Paris 07 SP

Dear Madame Chairman,

The world has been witnessing, and the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic has verified (AlHRC/S-17 /2/Add. 1), the Government of Syria’s repressive actions in violation of the human rights of the Syrian people. The situation in Syria challenges UNESCO’s basic Constitutional objectives, in particular, “— to further respect for justice, for the law and for human rights and fundamental freedoms —” (Art. 1.1)

UNESCO must not fail to respond to the call for action by the UN Human Rights Council (AlHRC/Res/S.18/1). As the Director General said in marking Human Rights Day this year, “— the observance of human rights is not negotiable.”

We are writing, pursuant to Rule 5 of the Rules of Procedure of the Executive Board to request the inscription of an item entitled, “Response of UNESCO to the Situation in Syria”.

An “Explanatory Note” which provides additional information will follow.

Sincerely,

[Ambassadors’ Signatures]

1. US
2. Qatar
3. Italy
4. Canada
5. Denmark
6. Spain
7. Austria
8. Chile
9. Kuwait
10. Albania
11. Slovakia
12. United Kingdom
13. France
14. Germany
______________________________________________________
EXPLANATORY MEMO

Response of UNESCO to the situation in Syria

1. The United Nations Human Rights Council at its 17th Special Session on 23 August 2011 decided to establish an Independent International Commission of Inquiry to investigate all alleged violations of human rights in Syria since mid-March 2011. The evidence gathered by the Commission led it to express grave
   concern that crimes against humanity have been committed by Syrian military and security forces. The Report documents widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms, including atrocities which have resulted in the deaths of over 300 children.2. The Commission called upon the Government of Syria to put an end to the ongoing human rights violations and recommended, inter alia, that the Government allow immediate and full access
   for the Commission, outside observers and other human rights monitoring bodies. It also called for full access for media without harassment or intimidation (A/HRC/S-17/2/Add.1)

   3. The United Nations Secretary-General has urged the international community to act to protect the Syrian people and the Human Rights Council has echoed this call. The Council transmitted the Commission Report to all relevant United Nations bodies and recommended that the main bodies of the UN consider
   the Report and take appropriate action (A/HRC/Res/S.1S/1).

   4. UNESCO must respond to these appeals for concerted action to address the egregious human rights situation in Syria. Syria, a member of the Executive Board, is also a member of the Board’s
   Committee on Conventions and Recommendations. In that capacity, Syria participates in the examination of cases involving alleged human rights violations under the “104 Procedure”. In view of the current situation in Syria, the Executive Board must review the participation of Syria in this aspect of its work.

   5. In addition, in view of documented concerns about the effect of the situation in Syria on its people, including, in particular, children and journalists, t-he Board should review this situation having reference to other areas of UNESCO’s competence, namely, education, cultural preservation and press freedom.

   6. In order to conduct a review and take appropriate action, (names of co~sponsors) request the inscription of a new item on the agenda of the 189th session of the Executive Board entitled, “Response of UNESCO to the Situation in Syria”.

Supporting states as of January 12, 2012:

1. Albania
2. Austria
3. Canada
4. Chile
5. Denmark
6. France
7. Germany
8. Italy
9. Japan
10. Korea
11. Kuwait
12. Monaco
13. Qatar
14. Slovakia
15. Spain
16. United Kingdom
17. United States

The post Exclusive: Documents Reveal Syria to Face Expulsion Bid From UNESCO Human Rights Committee appeared first on UN Watch.

“Remembering the Holocaust:  What Have We Learned?  What Must We Do?”

By Irwin Cotler

Mr. Director-General, Ambassadors, Excellencies, Survivors, and Friends:

May I preface my remarks with a personal statement. Whenever I speak on the Holocaust (the Shoah) I do so with a certain degree of humility, and not without a deep sense of pain.

For I am reminded of what my parents taught me while still a young boy — the profundity and pain of which I realized only years later — that there are things in Jewish history that are too terrible to be believed, but not too terrible to have happened; that Oswiencim, Majdanek, Dachau, Treblinka — these are beyond vocabulary. Words may ease the pain, but they may also dwarf the tragedy. For the Holocaust was uniquely evil in its genocidal singularity, where biology was inescapably destiny, a war against the Jews in which, as Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Elie Wiesel put it, “not all victims were Jews, but all Jews were victims”.

We meet at an important moment of remembrance and reminder, of witness and warning:

• on the 62nd anniversary of the liberation of the death camps — of the liberation of the surviving remnants of “Planet Auschwitz” — the most horrific laboratory of mass murder in history;

• on the 62nd anniversary of the disappearance of Raoul Wallenberg in January 1945 into the Soviet Gulag — this Hero of Humanity, this Saint Just of the Nations, whom the United Nations called the greatest humanitarian of the 20th Century, who showed that one person could confront evil, resist and prevail, and thereby transform history;

• on the eve of the 62nd anniversary of the United Nations, which as former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, “emerged from the ashes of the Holocaust”, and intended “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war”; and where, as he reminded us, “a UN that fails to be at the forefront of the fight against anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, denies its history and undermines its future”;

• in the aftermath of the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg Principles, which became the forerunner of what has come to be known as international humanitarian and criminal law, but reminding us also of thedouble entendre of Nuremberg — the Nuremberg of jackboots as well as the Nuremberg of judgments, the Nuremberg of racism as well as the Nuremberg principles;

• on the first anniversary of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust — which is being commemorated for the first time in the Salle des Assemblées — the venue of the “gathering storm” of the Thirties that was not averted — so that we may remember and be reminded, bear witness and heed the warning — never again — not now, not ever.

And so, on this Anniversary of Anniversaries, on this day of days, some 60 years after the Holocaust, the birth of the U.N. — the double entendre of Nuremberg — on the eve of the 60th anniversary in 2008 of the Genocide Convention — the “never again” convention — and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — we have to ask ourselves, what have we learned and what must we do?

May I now summarize the universal lessons of the Holocaust — the lessons to be learned and the action to be taken. For as Kierkegaard put it, “life must be lived forwards, but it can only be understood backwards”.

Lesson 1 — The Importance of Holocaust Remembrance

The first lesson is the importance of Zachor, of remembrance itself. For as we remember the six million Jewish victims of the Shoah — defamed, demonized and dehumanized, as prologue or justification for genocide — we have to understand that the mass murder of six million Jews and millions of non-Jews is not a matter of abstract statistics.

For unto each person there is a name — unto each person, there is an identity. Each person is a universe. As our sages tell us: “whoever saves a single life, it is as if he or she has saved an entire universe.” Just as whoever has killed a single person, it is as if they have killed an entire universe. And so the abiding imperative — that we are each, wherever we are, the guarantors of each other’s destiny.

Lesson 2 — The Danger of State-Sanctioned Incitement to Hatred and Genocide — The Responsibility to Prevent

The enduring lesson of the Holocaust is that the genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the industry of death and the technology of terror, but because of the state-sanctioned ideology of hate. This teaching of contempt, this demonizing of the other, this is where it all began. As the Canadian courts affirmed in upholding the constitutionality of anti-hate legislation, “the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers — it began with words”. These, as the Courts put it, are the chilling facts of history. These are the catastrophic effects of racism.

Forty years later, in the Nineties, these lessons not only remained unlearned, but the tragedy was repeated. For we witnessed, yet again, a growing trafficking in state-sanctioned hate and incitement, which in the Balkans and in Rwanda took us down the road to genocide.

And as we meet, we are witnessing yet again, a state-sanctioned incitement to hate and genocide, whose epicentre is Ahmadinejad’s Iran — and I distinguish President Ahmadinejad from the people of Iran, many of whom have themselves repudiated his remarks. For President Ahmadinejad denies the Nazi Holocaust as he incites to a Middle Eastern one — an assault on Jewish memory and truth in its denial of the Holocaust, which the U.N. General Assembly rebuked several days ago; and a violation of the prohibition against the “direct and public incitement to genocide” in the Genocide Convention, which U.N. Secretaries-General Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-Moon respectively called “shocking” and “unacceptable”, indeed, an assault on the very U.N. charter, which prohibits such incitement and threat.

Lesson 3 — The Danger of Silence, The Consequences of Indifference — The Duty to Protect

The genocide of European Jewry succeeded not only because of the state-sanctioned culture of hate and industry of death, but because of crimes of indifference, because of conspiracies of silence.

We meet today in the majestic Salle des Assemblées of the former League of Nations.  It was here that Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie pleaded in vain for protection from Mussolini’s 1935 aggression.  Fascism marched ahead, winning one victory after another.  It was here that while the gathering storm of war advanced, with Czechoslovakia surrendering to Hitler in 1938, further appeals for protection went unheeded.  The response was international indifference, a failure of moral resolve, and the result was world war and genocide.

We are assembled here on the banks of Lake Geneva, on the other side of which lies Évian-les-Bains.  It was here in 1938 that the international community considered the plight of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees desperate to flee worsening persecutions in Nazi Germany and Austria.  But the nations looked away. As it was said at the time, the world was divided into those places where the Jews could not live, and those places where they could not enter.  Hitler drew his lessons.

As we gather here today to commemorate the Holocaust in this historic Assembly Hall, with the representatives of the international community and civil society, let us pledge that never again will we be indifferent to aggression, hatred and incitement.

And indeed we have witnessed an appalling indifference and inaction in our own day which took us down the road to the unthinkable — ethnic cleansing in the Balkans — and down the road to the unspeakable — the genocide in Rwanda — unspeakable because this genocide was preventable. No one can say that we did not know. We knew, but we did not act, just as we know and have yet to act to stop the genocide by attrition in Darfur, ignoring the lessons of history, betraying the people of Darfur, and mocking the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

And so, it is our responsibility to break down these walls of indifference, to shatter these conspiracies of silence and inaction — to stand up and be counted and not look around to see whoever else is standing before we make a judgement to do so; because in the world in which we live, there are few enough people prepared to stand, let alone be counted, reminding us of the words of Edmund Burke, “the surest way to ensure that evil will triumph in the world is for enough good people to do nothing”.

Indifference and inaction always mean coming down on the side of the victimizer, never on the side of the victim. Let there be no mistake about it — indifference in the face of evil is acquiescence with evil itself — it is complicity with evil.

Lesson 4 — Combating Mass Atrocity and the Culture of Impunity — The Responsibility to Bring War Criminals to Justice

If the 20th Century — symbolized by the Holocaust — was the age of atrocity, it was also the age of impunity. Few of the perpetrators were brought to justice; and so, just as there must be no sanctuary for hate, no refuge for bigotry, there must there be no base or sanctuary for these enemies of humankind. In this context, the establishment of the International Criminal Court must be seen as the most dramatic development in international criminal law since Nuremberg — to deter mass atrocity, to protect the victims, and to prosecute the perpetrators.

Lesson 5 — The Trahison des Clercs — The Responsibility to Talk Truth to Power

The Holocaust was made possible, not only because of the “bureaucratization of genocide”, as Robert Lifton put it, but because of thetrahison des clercs — the complicity of the elites — physicians, church leaders, judges, lawyers, engineers, architects, educators, and the like. Indeed, one only has to read Gerhard Muller’s book on “Hitler’s Justice” to appreciate the complicity and criminality of judges and lawyers; or to read Robert-Jan van Pelt’s book on the architecture of Auschwitz, to be appalled by the minute involvement of engineers and architects in the design of death camps, and so on. Holocaust crimes, then, were also the crimes of the Nuremberg elites. As Elie Wiesel put it, “Cold-blooded murder and culture did not exclude each other. If the Holocaust proved anything, it is that a person can both love poems and kill children”.

And so it is our responsibility to speak truth to power, and to hold power accountable to truth. And those entrusted with the education and training of the elites should ensure that Elie Wiesel is studied in schools of law and not just in classes of literature; that the double entendre of Nuremberg — of Nuremberg racism as well as the Nuremberg Principles — is part of our learning as it is part of our legacy; that Holocaust education underpin our perspective as it informs our principles — on justice and injustice.

Lesson 6 — Holocaust Remembrance — The Responsibility to Educate

Sweden is a case-study of how Holocaust education, can not only teach an entire society of the importance of Holocaust remembrance and reminder — of witness and warning — but how it can engage that whole society in “living history” — in the teaching, learning, and internalization of Holocaust sensibility — where the particularity of the Holocaust has universal resonance.

In particular, in the spirit of the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, states should commit themselves to the constituent elements of the Declaration of the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, which included, inter alia, the understanding that:

“the Holocaust fundamentally challenged the foundations of civilization…[its] unprecedented character will always hold universal meaning…[its] magnitude…must be forever seared in our collective memory…together we must uphold the terrible truths of the Holocaust against those who deny it.

We must strengthen the moral commitment of our people and the political commitment of our governments, to ensure that future generations can understand the causes of the Holocaust and reflect upon its consequences.

We pledge to strengthen efforts to promote education, remembrance and research about the Holocaust…

We share a commitment to encourage the study of the Holocaust in all its dimensions…a commitment to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to honour those who stood against it…a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust…a commitment to plant the seeds of a better future amidst the soil of a bitter past…a commitment…to remember the victims who perished, respect the survivors still with us, and reaffirm humanity’s common aspiration for mutual understanding and justice.”

Lesson 7 — The Vulnerability of the Powerless — The Protection of the Vulnerable as the Test of a Just Society

The genocide of European Jewry occurred not only because of the vulnerability of the powerless, but also because of the powerlessness of the vulnerable. It is not surprising that the triage of Nazi racial hygiene — the Sterilization Laws, the Nuremberg Race Laws, the Euthanasia Program — targeted those “whose lives were not worth living”; and it is not unrevealing, as Professor Henry Friedlander points out in his work on “The Origins of Genocide”, that the first group targeted for killing were the Jewish disabled — the whole anchored in the science of death, the medicalization of ethnic cleansing, the sanitizing even of the vocabulary of destruction.

And so it is our responsibility as government representatives — and, morally, as citoyens du monde — to give voice to the voiceless, as we seek to empower the powerless — be they the disabled, the poor, the refugee, the elderly, the women victims of violence, the vulnerable child — the most vulnerable of the vulnerable.

Indeed, perhaps the most important human rights lesson I learned was taught to me by my daughter, now 27, when she was 15 years of age, when she said: “Daddy, if you want to know the real test of human rights, always ask yourself, at any time, in any situation, in any part of the world, ‘is it good for children? Is what is happening good for children?’ That’s the real test of human rights, Daddy.”

Conclusion

May I close with a word to the survivors of the Holocaust — for you are the true heroes of humanity. You witnessed and endured the worst of inhumanity, but somehow you found in the depths of your own humanity the courage to go on, to rebuild your lives as you have built your communities. And so it is with you, and because of you, and because of the righteous among the nations — like Raoul Wallenberg — that we remember that each person has a name and an identity — that each person is a universe — that in saving one life we save an entire universe.

We remember — and we pledge — and this must not be a matter of rhetoric but must be a commitment to action — that never again will we be indifferent to incitement and hate; that never again will we be silent in the face of evil; that never again will we indulge racism and anti-semitism; that never again will we ignore the plight of the vulnerable; that never again will we be indifferent in the face of mass atrocity and impunity.

We will speak and we will act against racism, against hate, against anti-semitism, against mass atrocity, against injustice — and against the crime of crimes whose name we should even shudder to mention — genocide.

And yes, always, against indifference, against being bystanders to injustice. For in what we say, or more importantly in what we do, we will be making a statement about ourselves as a people, we will be making a statement about ourselves as people. For in our day, more than ever, qui s’excuse s’accuse, whoever remains indifferent indicts themselves.

May this day be not only an act of remembrance, which it is, but let it be a remembrance to act, which it must be.

Professor Cotler is a Canadian member of parliament and former justice minister and attorney general.  A longtime board member of UN Watch, Professor Cotler is a distinguished academic and a prominent human rights lawyer, whose dedication to humanitarian causes has earned him the Order of Canada and many other awards.  Professor Cotler has represented Andrei Sakharov and Anatoly Sharansky in the Soviet Union, Nelson Mandela in South Africa, Nigerian playwright and Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, and most recently Saad Edin Ibrahim, an Egyptian sociologist and democracy advocate whose criticism of Egypt’s Mubarak government resulted in his incarceration. Maclean’s magazine has referred to Cotler as “Counsel for the Oppressed.” He has been a leader in the development of international humanitarian law and has to his credit landmark cases in free speech, freedom of religion, women’s rights, minority rights and peace law.

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