Human Rights Under Assault

At its recent June 2007 session, the UN Human Rights Council concluded its lengthy reform process by voting, first, to drop Belarus and Cuba from its blacklist. New restrictions were imposed on the independent experts who report on country violations. The ability to introduce resolutions that name abusers was curbed.  And Israel was singled out for permanent indictment—the sole country targeted by a special agenda item, and the sole country subjected to an investigation that examines only one side, is immune from review, and presumes guilt in advance.

The five-minute video below offers a glimpse into how the UN's highest human rights body—dominated by the worst abusers of human rights—is tragically being turned on its head, to attack democracies, destroy mechanisms of human rights protection, and assault the very idea of human rights.

Length: 5 minutes

Credits: Directed by H. Neuer, Video Editing and Research by T. Frankenstein, Additional Research by C. Gross.

In their Own Words: Quotes from the UN Human Rights Council

The following sample of quotes from the UN Human Rights Council, many of which feature on the video above, offer a glimpse into how the UN's highest human rights body is tragically being turned on its head—to attack democracies, destroy mechanisms of human rights protection, and assault the very idea of human rights.

Attacking Democracies

• "The United States [is] the main enemy of international cooperation and human rights across the world." — Cuban Ambassador Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, June 19, 2007.
  
  
• "Cuba's election [to the Human Rights Council] epitomizes the victory of principles and of truth. . . The absence of the United States is the defeat of lies, it is the moral punishment. . ." — Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque, at inaugural session of Human Rights Council, June 20, 2006.
  
  
• "They [Americans] are killing civilians, practicing torture, and other cruelty exhibiting those of Nazism." — North Korean Amb. Choe Myong Nam, Sept. 27, 2006.

• "Americans will always do the right thing—after they have exhausted all the alternatives." — Palestinian representative Mohammad Abu-Koash, Mar. 22, 2007. He did not mention that since 1993, Palestinians have received more than $1.7 billion in U.S. economic assistance, more than from any other donor country.
  
  
• "Japan is a chauvinistic and xenophobic country." — North Korean Amb. Choe Myong Nam, Sept. 19, 2006.
  
  
• "For the U.K., blood is always thicker than water." — Zimbabwe Ambassador Chitsaka Chipaziwa, June 11, 2007.
  
  
• "For the Germans, the hangover from the Nazi past is self-evident." — Zimbabwe Amb. Chitsaka Chipaziwa, Mar. 29, 2007;   "For Some the genes of Nazism run deep." — Zimbabwe representative Enos Mafemba, responding to Germany's critique of the Mugabe regime's human rights record, June 12, 2007.
  
   
• "The United Kingdom. . . is spearheading the rabid, demonic forces against Zimbabwe." — Zimbabwe Amb. Chitsaka Chipaziwa, Mar. 29, 2007.
  
  
  

Blaming Western Conspiracy

• "Unfortunately. . . we witness a conspiracy against Sudan for political objectives" — Minister of Justice of the Sudan Mohamed Ali Elmardi, Mar. 16, 2007.
  
  
• "We see through your machinations to re-colonize us. . . you want to re-colonize the continent." — Zimbabwe, Mar. 14, 2007.
  
  

• "Is it a coincidence that the Secretary-General intercedes in this special session on Darfur that was initiated by the Western Group?" — Palestinian representative Mohammad Abu-Koash, Dec. 12, 2006, suggesting a conspiracy against Sudan organized by Western democracies and Kofi Annan.

• "External parties [are] exploiting the situation [in Darfur] so that they can achieve their own objectives, in oil particularly. — Syrian represenative Abdul-Monem Annan, June 13, 2007.
  
  

Insulting UN Experts

• "The Cuba she is trying to present to us is. . . concocted in the laboratories of the CIA and the White House." — Cuban Amb. Juan Antonio Fernández Palacios, attacking Ms. Christine Chanet, the UN expert on human rights violations in Cuba, June 12, 2007.
  
  
• "This exercise seeks to condemn, to indict, one of the most ethical and moral states that we see in the world today." — Sri Lanka representative Daya Jayalthilake, supporting Cuba's attacks on Ms. Chanet, and praising Cuba's Fidel Castro regime, which runs a police states that jails journalists and represses dissent.
  

• "This report continues a practice of open distortion, false allegations, and absurd conclusions." — Belarus Amb. Sergei Aleinik, attacking the UN expert on human rights violations in Belarus, June 12, 2007.
  
  
• "The report of the expert on Belarus is really a basket-case in terms of analyzing what can go wrong in special procedures." — Algerian Amb. Idriss Jazairy, June 12, 2007.

Advocating Elimination of Experts on Human Rights Violations in Specific Countries

• "Ambassador Juan Antonio Fernandez. . . within a few days, together with you, we will celebrate the end of the mandate of this rapporteur [expert on Cuban violations], and we will listen together to Guantanamera." — Palestine representative Mohammad Abu-Koash, June 12, 2007.

• "My delegation is against country mandates." — Libyan representative Musnia Markus, June 12, 2007.
  
  
• "All country rapporteurs should be dropped." — Palestinian representative Mohammad Abu-Koash, Mar. 12, 2007.
  
  
• "Shed the institution of country-specific procedures." — Russian representative Sergey Chumarev, Oct. 3, 2006.
  
  
• "Terminate all country mandates." — South African representative Glaudine Mitshali, June 12, 2007.
  
  
• "Country mandates. . . should not be part of the agenda." — Venezuela representative Gabriel Salazar, June 12, 2007.
  
  
• "Remove them [experts on country violations]." — Iran representative Mahmoud Khani, Oct. 3, 2006.
  

Perverting Human Rights

• "We represent the conscience of humanity." — Sudan representative, Oct. 4, 2006.
  
  
• "Sudan has demonstrated cooperation. . . exemplary cooperation." — Syrian Representative Abdul-Monem Annan, Jun. 13, 2007.
  
  
• "Arafat, Castro, [Che] Guevara stand tall. . . in their worldwide influence, stature, and inspiration." — Palestinian representative Mohammad Abu-Koash, June 12, 2007.

• "It's become politically incorrect to be antisemitic against Jews while it is correct to be antisemitic against Arab peoples. Antisemitism is a form of racism that we've all experienced." — Algeria's Ambassador Idriss Jazairy, head of the powerful African Group at the Human Rights Council, June 11, 2007. Notwithstanding his degrees from the universities of Oxford and Harvard, as well as France's elite Ecole Nationale d'Administration, Ambassador Jazairy offers the childish argument, often repeated at the UN by Arab and Muslim states, that because Arabs are "Semitic" people, the universal term for hostility or prejudice against Jews ought to be gutted of its meaning. In so doing, the Algerian diplomat and his colleagues seek to deny antisemitism by redefining the very concept itself out of existence.

(For additional quotes, click here.)

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