UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer (above) today called on the UN to remove the Syrian regime’s
“Goddess of Justice” statue now on permanent display outside the UN Human Rights Council chamber.
Inscription on the plaque is shown in photo below.
Geneva, Oct. 20, 2016 — UN Watch issued the following comment on today’s UN Human Rights Council special session on the situation in Aleppo and the latest draft resolution:
Four Years Since Last Special Session
“Astonishingly, four years have passed since the UN’s top human rights body held an urgent session on the carnage in Syria, despite hundreds of thousands killed and wounded. So today’s global spotlight on Aleppo and other Syrian victims is welcome if long overdue,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental monitoring group.
Contrary to Samantha Power’s Remarks, Resolution Fails to Call Out Russia, Iran, Hezbollah
Yesterday U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power rightly told the General Assembly that “accountability starts by speaking the truth about who is responsible for the unspeakable horrors we are witnessing”; that “the perpetrators have names;” and that when we don’t call out Russia, “we obscure responsibility in a way that each of us would find totally intolerable if we found our families or our neighborhoods pummeled like those in eastern Aleppo.”
“Yet regrettably today’s Western-backed resolution squanders a golden opportunity to hold key perpetrators to account. The draft ’strongly condemns’ ISIS, yet refuses to condemn or even mention Russia, Iran, or Hezbollah—the major forces behind Bashar al-Assad’s regime, the main source of death and destruction in Syria since 2011. Instead, the text only makes demands on “the Syrian authorities and its supporters.”
Russia Enjoy Immunity, to be Re-elected to UNHRC Next Week
“It’s sad that Putin’s warplanes can bomb a UN-backed humanitarian convoy and help pulverize the people of Aleppo—and yet enjoy complete immunity at the UN Human Rights Council. Worse, Russia sits there as a member, and is certain to be re-elected in the UN vote next Friday at the General Assembly in New York.”
“If the world won’t stand up to Russian aggression now, in a forum where Moscow holds no veto, when will they?”
UN Must Remove Syria’s Goddess of Justice Statue
“It is outrageous that right outside the council chamber the UN has on permanent display a Goddess of Justice statue donated by Syria’s murderous Bashar al-Assad regime. This is the height of cynicism. When we take the floor today, we will call on the UN to remove it immediately,” said Neuer. In the words of former Syrian political prisoner Mohamad Kamal Allabwani, “Is this not an insult for the 300,000 Syrians who have been murdered during this conflict? Is this not a standing insult to the millions who suffer daily?”
