🌐 Vienna on June 27 International Seminar 🌐 ➡️ Renowned speakers will debate the legal implications and the impact on Human Ritghs of such measures. Ignacio Ramonet – Alfred de Zayas – Rahmat Mohamad – William Schabas – Leo Gabriel- Idriss Jazairy @CancilleriaVE @jchacon2021 pic.twitter.com/3V1YLSV4la

— Embajada de Venezuela en Austria/Misión ONU Viena (@EmbaVEAustria) June 18, 2019

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The panelists:
1. Lead panelist was UN expert Idriss Jazairy, who described Putin’s Russia as a human rights victim. Coincidentally, as UN Watch revealed today, Jazairy received $50,000 from the Russian government. As Algerian ambassador to UN, he once said “antisemitism targets Arabs”; and, most famously, he led a major effort to muzzle UN human rights experts. And then he became a UN human rights expert himself.
2. Alena Douhan, a Belarus academic with a soft spot for Russia, whose doctorate was on the principle of “non-interference” in countries’ “internal affairs.”
3. Alfred de Zayas, the Cuban-appointed expert for a “democratic and equitable international order.” Zayas has defended Iran’s right to nuclear weapons, and writes books claiming Germany suffered a “genocide” in 1945. Zayas is a hero to Holocaust deniers.
4. Jean Ziegler, co-founder & 2002 recipient of the Qaddafi Human Rights Prize. In his presentation, Ziegler actually defended the murderous Maduro regime of Venezuela, which he said was being victimized by a U.S. “economic war.”
5. Panel Chair: the ambassador of Venezuela’s Maduro regime, Jorge Romero. He effusively thanked Ziegler for his kind words.
6. Peggy Hicks, a top official in the office of UN high commissioner Zeid, delivered the opening statement. A former Human Rights Watch official, we hoped she would provide a dissenting voice. Instead, she echoed the same line. And when Ziegler spouted pro-Maduro propaganda, Hicks was silent.

The entire topic is a thinly veiled mechanism to attack the West and portray gross abusers like Sudan as victims. Those pretending to oppose coercive economic measures are silent about the many Arab countries who exercise a boycott against not only Israel, but also a secondary or tertiary boycott against those who do business with Israel.
The whole discussion on “unilateral coercive measures” is so transparently selective and politicized as to be a complete fraud. Similarly, the composition of the panel was a disgrace.
The fact that a former top official of Human Rights Watch would deliver remarks legitimizing this fraud, and taking it seriously, without a word of dissent — without a word of objection when panelist Ziegler defended a dictatorship — is shameful.

1. Even within the rogues' gallery that is the U.N. human rights Council, this panel speaking now is the mother of all rogues' galleries. pic.twitter.com/KvUejQ63oL

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2017

2. Jean Ziegler, panelist who just addressed @UN_HRC—defending Maduro regime—is co-founder & 2002 laureate of the Qaddafi Rights Prize. pic.twitter.com/KstAztFAlu

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2017

3. After UNHRC panelist Jean Ziegler defended Maduro regime, he was thanked by the panel chair: yes, #Venezuela's ambassador, Jorge Valero. pic.twitter.com/qfrw3MWDN8

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2017

4. Another panelist today was @UN_HRC expert Alfred de Zayas, a defender of Iran's right to nuclear weapons—and a hero to Holocaust deniers. pic.twitter.com/WraozLhQUz

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2017

5. Lead panelist was UN expert Idriss Jazairy—who defends Putin's Russia. As Algeria ambassador to UN, he said "antisemitism targets Arabs." pic.twitter.com/EalWGHllbG

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2017

6. Finally, OHCHR's @hickspeggy (ex-@HRW). I hoped she'd dissent—but she echoed same line. And when Ziegler praised Maduro—Peggy was silent. pic.twitter.com/NsQzuhEFEQ

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) September 14, 2017

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Unilateral coercive measures targeting the Sudan restrict trade and investment in the country, which in turn forces the population to face enormous challenges to their enjoyment of human rights. Coercive measures affect the right to health and an adequate standard of living, the right to food, the right to education and the right to development.

Jazairy: Nemesis of UN rights experts, then himself a UN rights expert
Hypocrisy reached new heights in March 2015 when the UNHRC appointed Jazairy as one of its human rights monitors: he is the same man who, as Algerian ambassador, personally headed a major campaign to muzzle the Council’s human rights monitors, by imposing a “Code of Conduct.”
UN Watch sounded the alarm before he was appointed in 2015, but to no avail.
(Update: In October 2016, the Tribune de Geneve exposed Jazairy’s conflict of interest in being a UN expert and also heading a front group funded by the United Arab Emirates.)
As Algerian ambassador on the UNHRC, Jazairy also took many other actions inimical to the protection and promotion of human rights:

• After Sri Lanka killed 40,000 of its own people, Jazairy co-sponsored a 2009 resolution that praised Sri Lanka for “promotion and protection of all human rights”

• Genocide by Sudan in Darfur didn’t stop Jazairy from sponsoring a 2006 resolution that praised the regime for “cooperation,” while demanding that the international community “honor their pledges of support” and “provide urgent and adequate financial and technical assistance to the Government of Sudan.”

• Jazairy repeatedly defended genocidal Sudan. When UN monitors reported attacks on Darfur civilians by Sudanese government-allied militias, they were immediately challenged by Jazairy: “And I say the alleged links between the government of Sudan, and the militias referred to by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have yet to be objectively documented.” Click here for video

• Asked by French journalist Caroline Fourest why certain Arab countries imprisoned homosexuals, contrary to human rights, Jazairy said that gay rights was a “Western-centric” attitude, having no basis in universal human rights.

• Jazairy headed a major effort to change international law to prohibit criticism of Islam, under the “Defamation of religion” banner. Jazairy’s non-paper wrote: “Requisite complementary standards shall include the prohibition of publication of material that direct seriously offensive attacks on matters regarded by followers of any religion or belief as sacred or inherent to their dignity as human beings.”

• Jazairy repeatedly sought to distort the meaning of the word anti-Semitism, saying that it targets Arabs and Muslims.

At an April 22, 2008 U.N. meeting on racism, he declared that “Antisemitism targets Arabs, who are also Semites, and by extension, the whole Muslim community.”
In 2011, he elaborated:

Already in the 19th century, Arabs and Jews, who equally belong to the Semitic race, were the target of the same anti-Semitic stereotyping… Since the holocaust, fortunately anti-Semitism targeting the Jews has been eschewed from public speech.
However, it continues to be accepted in the name of freedom of expression when it takes the form of Arabophobia, or by extension, of Islamophobia.

• Jazairy received $50,000 from the Russian Federation for his UN mandate. (UN 2017 report, A/HRC/34/34/Add.1, p.37)  Coincidentally, his application clarified his vision of the anti-American mandate—which included shilling for Vladimir Putin’s aggression:

I regard UCMs [unilateral coercive measures] as an issue which principally affects North-South relations and see this mandate as an opportunity to put to use my experience of half a century in multilateralism as a bridge-builder between North and South. Pre-Helsinki UCMs were an expression of East-West rivalry. Alas! increased tension over Crimea and Ukraine has all but revived this situation. The impact of UCMs on human rights being conversely related to the level of development of the targeted countries, the people of the South are the most vulnerable to Northern “sanctions.”

The post UN’s Idriss Jazairy thinks genocidal Sudan is the human rights victim appeared first on UN Watch.

• After Sri Lanka killed 40,000 of its own people, Jazairy co-sponsored a 2009 resolution that praised Sri Lanka for “promotion and protection of all human rights”
• Genocide by Sudan in Darfur didn’t stop Jazairy from sponsoring a 2006 resolution that praised the regime’s “cooperation,” while demanding that the international community “honor their pledges of support” and “provide urgent and adequate financial and technical assistance to the Government of Sudan.”
• When UN monitors reported attacks on Darfur civilians by Sudanese government-allied militias, they were immediately challenged by Jazairy: “And I say the alleged links between the government of Sudan, and the militias referred to by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, have yet to be objectively documented.” Click here for video
• Jazairy headed a major effort to amend international treaties so as to prohibit criticism of Islam, under the “Defamation of religion” banner. Jazairy’s non-paper: “Requisite complementary standards shall include the prohibition of publication of material that direct seriously offensive attacks on matters regarded by followers of any religion or belief as sacred or inherent to their dignity as human beings.”
• Jazairy repeatedly sought to distort the meaning of the word anti-Semitism, saying that it targets Arabs and Muslims.

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The Code as it emerged was essentially an Algerian initiative, driven by its Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, Idriss Jazaïry. While Ambassador Jazaïry was always careful to act under the aegis of the African Group within the Council, and was strongly supported in his efforts by states such as China, Cuba, Egypt and Pakistan, as well as by the Organization of the Islamic Conference (an umbrella grouping of Islamic states), it was ultimately his personal project. He commissioned a respected Algerian jurist, Fatsah Ougergouz, to prepare a first draft of the Code, he revised and submitted each of the successive drafts to the Council, he conducted the negotiations and wrote the notes explaining which proposals had been accepted and which rejected, and the timing of the adoption of the draft on 18 June 2007 was dictated in significant part by the fact that Algeria’s membership of the Council ceased at the end of that day. And, most unusually for such an important initiative, the draft resolution containing the Code was put forward by a sole sponsor – “Algeria (on behalf of the African Group)”.

Here is how Jazairy’s initial draft, later modified, would silence independent monitors, and prevent them from criticizing governments:

Alarm bells sounded on June 5, 2007 […] when Ambassador Jazaïry tabled a revised
version of the Code that was said to have incorporated suggestions made by various, albeit
unidentified, delegations. The new Algerian draft would have radically reduced the scope of
activities for most SRs, as well as seriously restricting their independence. The details of
country visits, for example, would have had to be planned in close cooperation with the
government concerned, which would also have been given a carte blanche to impose whatever
“security” measures they felt warranted. Mandate-holders could not make any public statements without first giving the state concerned “adequate time for investigation, reply and, when appropriate, action”, thus implying a delay of many months. Urgent appeals to
governments, which had hitherto been made in a variety of situations, would now be restricted
to those involving either the actual loss of human life or “eminently life-threatening”
situations. And the routine complaints, the so-called “allegation letters”, could only be sent if
the original complaint did not have “political motivations”, if it identified the rights alleged to
have been violated, if the complainants had both direct and reliable knowledge of the violation, if
domestic remedies had been exhausted, and if the relevant situation was not being dealt with by
any other human rights procedure. A conservative estimate is that this would have eliminated
at least 90% of the allegation letters previously sent to governments. Finally, the draft proposed
the establishment of an “Ethics Committee of the Human Rights Council”. In other words, the
Code’s application would be overseen by the governments themselves.

The proposal was astounding:

The draconian nature of these proposals spoke volumes about the motivations of the
sponsors. They could not, as proclaimed by Ambassador Jazaïry, have been designed to
“enhance the moral authority of mandate-holders and their independence in the context of their
recognized prerogatives and accountability therefore.” To most observers, they amounted to a
concerted effort to limit the mandate-holders’ scope of action, introduce extensive delays in their work, and put governments firmly in the driver’s seat in relation to the work of SRs seeking to hold those governments to account.

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GENEVA, March 17, 2015 – The UN Human Rights Council has shortlisted 79-year-old Idriss Jazairy — a former Algerian ambassador who led the Islamic bloc’s attacks on Israel and its “Defamation of Islam” campaign that demonized cartoonists, and who repeatedly states that the victims of anti-Semitism are Arabs — to head a new post backed by Cuba and designed to classify U.S. sanctions against rogue regimes as violations of human rights.
The new “Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights” will be appointed at the close of the current month-long session of the UNHRC.
A committee of five diplomats ranked Jazairy as the top nominee for the post, and the council president indicated on Friday that he was inclined to follow the panel’s recommendations. Read more

____________________

 Video: UN Watch Director on Wall Street Journal TV

 CLICK FOR VIDEO

GENEVA, March 17 – Wall Street Journal TV interviewed UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer concerning U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent speech to the UN Human Rights Council, now holding a month-long session.
In the interview, Neuer gave top grades to Kerry for ridiculing the Syrian-drafted resolution in this session that will condemn Israel for alleged rights abuses on the Golan Heights — at a time when Syrian victims of Assad atrocities flee to hospitals in Israel — but regretted that America’s top diplomat overly praised the 47-nation body, failing to call out its many other Orwellian distortions:
•  In this session, the HRC will not adopt a single resolution on massacres by Boko Haram inNigeria, the Islamic State‘s atrocities in Iraq, nor on gross and systematic human rights violations by HRC member states like China, Russia, Cuba, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Vietnam.
•  Attention has instead been diverted to lengthy panels on “Human Rights Mainstreaming” and “The Effects of Foreign Debt on the Enjoyment of All Human Rights” (a theme that will also get its own special resolution), and, for one entire day, a panel on “Human Rights and Climate Change.”
•  While the vast majority of the world’s worst abusers will not be addressed in a single resolution,Egypt, whose failed society and economy has led to mass unemployment affecting millions, will present a text on “the right to work.”
• The Communist regime of Cuba will push through a resolution on the “right to food,” with the wife and colleague of Richard Falk, Hilal Elver, the designated expert to implement it, along with another resolution on “the enjoyment of the cultural rights of everyone and respect for cultural diversity,” a mandate used by dictatorships to justify oppression and abuse of human rights.
•  Despite its engagement in mass slaughter in Syria, and its terrorist attacks from Buenos Aires to Bangkok, the Islamic Republic of Iran, acting in the name of the 120-nation Non-Aligned Movement, will submit a resolution on “international cooperation.”

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