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.

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Left to right: Iraqi Christians Ramzi Wahida & Maryam Wahida, UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer, Iraqi Christian representative, and Yazidi spokesman Breen Tahseen

 
GENEVA, Aug. 20, 2014 – The following statement was issued today by Mr. Breen Tahseen, the son and spokesman of Prince Tahseen, leader of the Yazidi people, at the conclusion of Geneva diplomatic meetings:
Today I conducted valuable meetings in Geneva, on behalf of the Yazidi people, with UN representatives of the United States and the European Union, and with the UN office of the high commissioner for human rights.
We are grateful for the extensive, in-depth and productive discussions concerning the desperate plight of the Yazidi people.
We reached important consensus about the need for the international community to act. We appreciate their efforts and trust that concrete and effective action will follow.
On behalf of Prince Tahseen and the Yazidi people, we appeal to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to lead the call for the UN Human Rights Council to hold an emergency session in order to focus world attention on the desperate plight of the Yazidi people.
The outcome of the session should focus on the following key objectives:

• Release of the approximately 5,000 Yazidi people kidnapped by ISIS.
• Resettlement of Yazidi refugees in Europe, the U.S., Canada, and Australia, with priority to the victims of genocide and their families.
• Creation of a safe zone in Iraq for displaced persons, supervised by the UN and administered by Christians and Yazidis.
• Compensation to victims for material and moral damages, and an allocation to them under the Iraqi budget.

We also request that negotiations by the international community with Iraq should include direct consultation with the Yazidi people.
Finally, we wish to express our gratitude to the human rights group UN Watch for successfully organizing my visit to Geneva, along with an inspiring solidarity rally, UN press conference and diplomatic meetings.
Links to videos, photos and audio of UN rally and press conference

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• Syria: “We all agree that the right to peace is not only a basic and necessary right, but is in fact inseparable from the most fundamental right, which is the right to life.”
• Cuba: “Cuba reaffirms the right to peace as a fundamental condition for the enjoyment of all human rights, in particular the right to life.”
• Iran: “The exercise of the right to peace and its promotion demands policies towards the elimination of the threat of war, particularly nuclear war, the renunciation of the use of threat of use of force in international relations…”
• Sri Lanka: “Sri Lanka supports the process of codification of the right to peace… Peace is a precondition for the enjoyment of all other human rights.”
• Venezuela: “The true enjoyment of the right to peace, the fulfillment of its effective application, unites us again, to confront those who, nowadays, reclaim the right to war, their principle instrument of domination.”

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• Syria: “We all agree that the right to peace is not only a basic and necessary right, but is in fact inseparable from the most fundamental right, which is the right to life.”
• Cuba: “Cuba reaffirms the right to peace as a fundamental condition for the enjoyment of all human rights, in particular the right to life.”
• Iran: “The exercise of the right to peace and its promotion demands policies towards the elimination of the threat of war, particularly nuclear war, the renunciation of the use of threat of use of force in international relations…”
• Sri Lanka: “Sri Lanka supports the process of codification of the right to peace… Peace is a precondition for the enjoyment of all other human rights.”
• Venezuela: “The true enjoyment of the right to peace, the fulfillment of its effective application, unites us again, to confront those who, nowadays, reclaim the right to war, their principle instrument of domination.”

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U.N. adopts Cuban-sponsored “Right to Peace” text endorsing terrorism

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The U.N. Human Rights Council’s recent 20th session saw the police state of Communist Cuba, a key backer of the Assad regime, successfully introduce a resolution for “the Right to Peace.”

Endorsed by such peace-loving states as Sudan, Belarus, China, Sri Lanka, Iran, North Korea—even Syria — the resolution, according to journalist Joel Brinkley, offers “pointless blather” that “will beguile you so you won’t notice on page six that they also want the U.N. to endorse the idea that ‘all peoples and individuals have the right to resist and oppose oppressive colonial, foreign occupation.’ ”

In other words, the U.N. legitimized the terminology used by Middle East terrorists to kill Americans and Israelis. The political culture of the council is such that the U.S. was the only one of 47 nations to vote no.

UN Watch took the floor during the meeting to expose the council’s Orwellian actions and language. See text below; video here.

____________

“Orwell and the U.N. Human Rights Council”
UNHRC, 20th Session, July 3, 2012
UN Watch Testimony by Executive Director Hillel Neuer

Thank you, Mr. President.

This year we mark the 64th anniversary of two monumental texts.

The first is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.

Three years after World War II, the founders of this council created the Universal Declaration, in response, as stated in the preamble, to atrocities that shocked the conscience of mankind. They reaffirmed that every human being has the right to life, the right to be free from torture, persecution and discrimination.

The United Nations must live up to that declaration.

Regrettably, too often in this body we are reminded of another great document from that same year: George Orwell’s classic on totalitarianism, 1984.

The novel portrays a dystopian universe where truth is turned on its head. War is Peace was the slogan.

We were reminded of Orwell most famously when the government of Libyan Col. Muammar Qaddafi was elected chair of the U.N. Human Rights Commission; and then again, only two years ago, when, despite our appeals together with the appeals of Libyan victims, Qaddafi’s regime was elected a member of this council.

We were reminded of Orwell yesterday, in this session. In the book 1984, everyone was forced to undergo a daily Two Minute of Hate. 

Yesterday, contrary to the principles of universality and equality, and contrary to the plea of the Secretary-General, one nation was once again singled out for an entire day of vitriol. 

And we are reminded of Orwell this week, in the proposal that is before us for a declaration on “the right to peace.” The draft report would recognize a “right to resist and oppose oppressive colonial, foreign occupation.”

That is the language used by terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah. 

Mr. President, 

The notion that War is Peace was an Orwellian slogan. It should not be the law of this council, or of the United Nations. Human rights should not be turned on its head.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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Initiated by Cuba, the resolution’s co-sponsors included Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Belarus, China, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed serious concerns over the text.

“The U.N. was founded on moral clarity,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “yet today the Syrian regime, which denies its people the right to life, was allowed to join with Iran, North Korea and other tyrannies to cynically present themselves as champions of peace.”

“It’s a sick joke that mocks the victims of these murderous regimes, and the majority should never have gone along with the farce. Today’s resolution is eerily similar to the mass slogan used in 1984, George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia: War is Peace.”

The vote result was 34 in favour, with only the US voting no. Abstaining were Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Italy, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.

The U.S. described the resolution’s call to draft a new U.N. declaration on the right to peace as “divisive” and “detrimental to efforts to achieve peace,” saying it would “sow division” and “embroil the council in contentious negotiations.” (Click here for the prepared U.S. statement.)

The new program is estimated by the U.N. to cost over $300,000 to implement.

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Initiated by Cuba, the resolution’s co-sponsors included Syria, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Belarus, China, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

The Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch expressed serious concerns over the text.

“The U.N. was founded on moral clarity,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer, “yet today the Syrian regime, which denies its people the right to life, was allowed to join with Iran, North Korea and other tyrannies to cynically present themselves as champions of peace.”

“It’s a sick joke that mocks the victims of these murderous regimes, and the majority should never have gone along with the farce. Today’s resolution is eerily similar to the mass slogan used in 1984, George Orwell’s totalitarian dystopia: War is Peace.”

The vote result was 34 in favour, with only the US voting no. Abstaining were Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Hungary, India, Italy, Moldova, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland.

The U.S. described the resolution’s call to draft a new U.N. declaration on the right to peace as “divisive” and “detrimental to efforts to achieve peace,” saying it would “sow division” and “embroil the council in contentious negotiations.” (Click here for the prepared U.S. statement.)

The new program is estimated by the U.N. to cost over $300,000 to implement.

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