“Why No Condemnation of the Taliban?” — Hillel Neuer Confronts the UN Human Rights Council

Video of the following rare moment of truth at the UN is now being shared widely on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Testimony by UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer before the United Nations Human Rights Council special session on Afghanistan, August 24, 2021

Madam President:

The United Nations was founded to prevent war. For years we appealed to this Council to hold an urgent session on the war in Afghanistan.

Yet even as 241,000 people were killed, including 71,000 civilians, this council refused to hold a single session to try and help Afghanistan’s victims. Not a single commission of inquiry to hold terrorists and their state sponsors to account.

Even as this Council has held nine special sessions criticizing another country, it never once met on Afghanistan, or adopted a single resolution to condemn the Taliban.

Today we have to ask: If the council had held to account the Taliban terrorists who lash women for going to work, or for speaking on the phone to a man, and if the council had pressured Pakistan to stop aiding and abetting the Taliban, how many thousands of lives could have been saved?

Today’s session is too little, and too late. In my hands is the draft resolution. Why is there nowhere any condemnation or even mention of the Taliban?

Why no condemnation of the Taliban’s latest offensive that directly targeted civilians, or of their assassination of human rights activists and journalists, their summary executions, arbitrary detentions, mass executions of civilians, and subjugation of women and girls?

Why is the West blamed for “military interventions,” while Iran and Pakistan are praised?

Why is there no mention that if the Taliban government is recognized by the United Nations, these misogynists stand to inherit Afghanistan’s seat on the UN women’s rights commission?

I thank you.

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UN Watch