The UN Human Rights Council concluded its September 2008 session by eliminating the investigative mandate on human rights abuses in Liberia, praising Sudan, and censuring Israel. The council weakened its mandate on Cambodia, and refused to renew the mandate on Sudan for more than six months, a move that opened the door to its eventual elimination. The council's censure of Israel was its twentieth since being founded in 2006. The 47-nation body has previously criticized North Korea once, and Myanmar four times, but has ignored the UN's other 189 countries, including the world's worst abusers.
Geneva, October 10, 2008 - To prevent the derailing of a world conference on racism, independent human rights group UN Watch today called on UN chief Ban Ki-moon and rights commissioner Navi Pillay to immediately denounce a submission by Asian states that accuses Israel of "racial practices" against Palestinians, "a new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity, a form of genocide," as well as "aggression, acts of racism, and intimidation." (See full text below.)
"The Asian submission for the Durban 2 declaration reproduces almost verbatim the vitriolic incitement and hateful rhetoric of demonization that was produced at the Tehran planning meeting at the 2001 lead-up to the original Durban debacle," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based UN Watch.
"The poison was mostly removed from the final Durban declaration only after European states threatened to walk out, but was adopted by the non-governmental forum, in a text that High Commissioner Mary Robinson summarily refused to forward to the UN, and which was denounced again last week by High Commissioner Pillay as a betrayal of the anti-racism cause."
"The key lesson learned from 2001 was that the UN's highest officials cannot stay silent until the very end, but must act immediately to denounce the language of incitement and demonization as soon as it rears its ugly head," said Neuer.
"The fingerprints of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who openly calls for the destruction of a UN member state, are all over this text, and all who want to safeguard the principles of human rights and the anti-racism cause must speak out forcefully, and fast," said Neuer.
"French President Sarkozy, the U.K. and the Netherlands expressly warned that a repeat of the 2001 hateful rhetoric would force them to walk out of the conference, and so the Asian states will bear full responsibility for the consequences of their provocation."
See full text and selections below.
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Full Asian text: http://blog.unwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/asian-text-for-durban-ii.pdf
(CONTRIBUTION OF THE ASIAN REGION TO THE DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE, 8 OCT 2008 CONTRIBUTION OF THE ASIAN REGION TO THE DURBAN REVIEW CONFERENCE, 8 OCT 2008 )
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