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Protest Qaddafi Supporter's Election as VP of UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee

Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey continues to support Jean Ziegler -- co-founder of the "Muammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize," and her former Socialist party confidante -- who was recently elected vice-chair of the UN Human Rights Council advisory committee, representing the Western group. As documented by the Times of London and The Guardian , Mr. Ziegler has publicly endorsed Fidel Castro, Robert Mugabe, Hugo Chavez, Colonel Mengistu, and other repressive rulers. He grossly abused the mandate of a previous UN post to pursue an extremist political agenda. Click for video and documentary evidence.

Send an email, using the form below, to Switzerland's president and foreign minister, expressing your disappointment in their sponsorship of Mr. Ziegler. Protest the cynical abuse of human rights and of the U.N. Charter's founding principles.

You can also express your disappointment by contacting the Swiss government as follows:

Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz
email: info@gs-efd.admin.ch
Tel. +41 31 322 63 01
Fax +41 31 323 38 52

Foreign Minister Calmy-Rey
UN Dept., Political Affairs Division III
(Headquarters of campaign to elect Jean Ziegler)
Phone: +41 31 323 5588
Fax: +41 31 323 5727
Email: PA3-CH-OI@eda.admin.ch

In the United States:

Swiss Ambassador Urs Ziswiler
Email: was.vertretung@eda.admin.ch
Phone: (202) 745 79 00
Fax: (202) 387 25 64

Consul-General in New York
E-Mail: nyc.vertretung@eda.admin.ch
Phone: (212) 599 5700
Fax: (212) 599 4266

Click to find your local Swiss embassy or consulate

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Hans-Rudolf Merz - President

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Swiss Foreign Minister Calmy-Rey

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Subject:*

Dear (recipient name),

Dear President Merz and Foreign Minister Calmy-Rey,

I write to join leading human rights activists, 30 non-governmental organizations, senior lawmakers in the European, Norwegian, and Canadian parliaments as well as the U.S. Congress, who opposed the election of Jean Ziegler to the UN Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, of which he was just named vice-chair.

Because of your sponsorship of Mr. Ziegler, he continues to occupy one of the only three seats allotted to Western countries.  The official criteria for the position are expertise in human rights, high moral standing, independence and impartiality.  An objective analysis of Mr. Ziegler’s record raises serious questions as to his satisfaction of these requirements.  Concerns include:

• Mr. Ziegler’s abuse of his current UN Mandate: UN special rapporteur on the right to food for the past seven years, Mr. Ziegler ignored many of the world’s most starving populations, instead focusing attention on his personal political agenda.  As documented in the UN Watch report “Blind to Burundi,” during 2000 to 2004, Mr. Ziegler systematically failed to speak out for numerous food emergencies, in Burundi, the Central African Republic, Sierra Leone and elsewhere. As he demonsrated during his recent mission to Cuba, in October 2007, Mr. Ziegler is the only UN investigator in history who uses his official visits to praise governments that violate human rights, instead of holding them accountable.

• Mr. Zieger’s support for serial violators of human rights: In 1986, Mr. Ziegler served as advisor to Ethiopian dictator Colonel Mengistu on a constitution instituting one-party rule.  In 2002 he praised the Zimbabwean dictator, saying,  “Mugabe has history and morality with him.”  He paid visits to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Kim Il-Sung in North Korea.  Mr. Ziegler is also a long-time supporter of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, whose regime Mr. Ziegler hailed during an official visit in October, while he refused to meet Cuban dissidents. Also this year, during an interview in Lebanon, Mr. Ziegler said, “I refuse to describe Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. It is a national resistance movement. I can understand Hezbollah when they kidnap soldiers...”

• Mr. Ziegler’s involvement with Libyan propaganda:  In 1989, shortly after Libyan agents blew up Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Mr. Ziegler went to Libya to co-found the “Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize,” and served as its Geneva spokesman.  The prize has since been awarded to anti-Western dictators such as Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.  It has also been awarded to notorious racists and anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, and Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Muhammad.  Bizarrely, although he once boasted of it, Mr. Ziegler now denies any involvement with the prize.  All of this is documented in meticulous detail by the UN Watch report of June 2006, and fully confirmed by a front-page story in your country’s leading newspaper.  (M. Haefliger, “Ziegler’s Libyen Connection,” Neue Zurcher Zeitung, June 25, 2006.)

• Ziegler’s support for Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy: In 1996, Mr. Ziegler publicly defended Roger Garaudy, a French Stalinist whose book, The Founding Myths of Modern Israel, denies the Holocaust. “All your work as a writer and philosopher,” Mr. Ziegler wrote on April 1, 1996, “attests to the rigor of your analysis and the unwavering honesty of your intentions.  It makes you one of the leading thinkers of our time.”  In 2002, Mr. Garaudy was awarded the Khaddafi Prize—the same year that Mr. Ziegler received it as well.

Many of the world’s leading authorities have objected to Mr. Ziegler’s practices.  In 2005, both UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and High Commissioner Louise Arbour publicly denounced Mr. Ziegler for having compared Israeli soldiers to concentration camp guards.  He is the only UN expert to have been so reprimanded.  Seventy U.S. congressmen wrote to the UN, citing Mr. Ziegler for anti-Semitism, while the Canadian government filed an official protest.

You were made aware of all of this as early as April 2006, when an international coalition of 15 non-governmental organizations, including victims of Cuban and Libyan abuses, protested Mr. Ziegler’s nomination as a UN expert, citing his disturbing record.  Even earlier than that, Swiss and international scholars have questioned Mr. Ziegler’s academic credentials.  For example, when he was made professor at the University of Geneva, historian Herbert Luthy returned his honorary doctorate in protest.

We note that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez nominated Mr. Ziegler for the same post in 2004, but that he failed to win election.

We deeply regret that your country, which sees itself as a supporter of human rights and of the UN's principles, continues to support an ally of dictators and human rights violators who brings the entire organization into disrepute.

We urge you to accept an independent and impartial inquiry into Mr. Ziegler’s record.

Thank you.

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