Reforming the UNCHR<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

The defence of human rights is one of the most important tasks for the Humanist movement worldwide. The world’s highest forum for the examination of human rights issues is the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR) which meets in plenary session in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Geneva once a year, from early March until late April. The Commission consists of 53 elected member states, each elected for three years, with the remaining 140 or so members of the United Nations as observers. IHEU, as an international NGO with special consultative status with the UN, has the right to address the Commission. (For a more detailed description of how the Commission works, see International Humanist News, May 2004.) In recent years however, the Commission has been the subject of severe criticism, mainly as a result of the election to membership of some of the world’s worst abusers of human rights.

This year, the Commission heard many reports regarding the situation in the Sudan, both in the south, where a recent peace deal has brought a shaky end to years of warfare, and in Darfur, scene of the latest ethnic cleansing. But the makeup of the 53 nation Commission ensured that no vote of censure, condemnation or criticism would be levelled at the government of the Sudan, itself a member of the Commission, even though it is fully implicated in the genocide. For the past 10 years, and with increasing determination since 9/11, the non-aligned and Islamic states have formed a cosy alliance called the “Like-Minded Group” to ensure that none of them is ever censured for breaches of their international obligations in respect of human rights. Several resolutions condemning Israel were, of course, adopted. Even if all of them were justified, the failure to condemn any Islamic state for its egregious breaches of human rights, such as the public stoning of women for alleged adultery, or hanging those accused of apostasy or blasphemy, stands out in stark contrast – and fully explains why the Commission is now held in such low esteem.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan

In his address to the Commission on 7th April, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan told the assembled delegates that they were failing in their responsibilities, and that piecemeal reform of the Commission would not be sufficient to put matters right. He proposed nothing less than disbanding the Commission and replacing it with a Human Rights Council open only to states fully supportive of human rights.

It didn’t take long for the Secretary General learn that his words had fallen on deaf ears when on 12th April the Commission passed a resolution agreeing to monitor defamation of religions, particularly Islam, and “Noting with deep concern the increasing trend in recent years of statements attacking religions, Islam and Muslims in particular, especially at human rights forums”. The resolution not only failed to condemn, it failed even to mention those who kill in the name of religion. See “IHEU at the Commission” (facing page).

Final proof, if any were needed, that the Commission has now lost almost all credibility came with the final resolutions of the six-week session. In one, “the litmus test”, the Commission condemned the continuing violence in Darfur, but failed to condemn the government of the Sudan for its part in the genocide. This “compromise” resolution – an apt expression for a resolution that has left the reputation of the Commission fatally compromised – was passed without a vote. The western democracies caved in on their demand  that the Sudanese government be condemned, in return for the Islamic states agreeing not to congratulate (!) the government of the Sudan on its efforts to end the violence.

In the final resolution which passed with the customary two thirds majority, the Commission actually exceeded its mandate. It agreed to hold a five-day meeting in June to discuss its response to the Secretary General’s proposal that it should be disbanded. Following the voting on these resolutions, Louise Armour, the High Commissioner, came back into the Commission for the second time in two days to tell them, in unusually forthright language, that she agreed wholeheartedly with the Secretary General. The pigs may have taken over the farmyard, but they had just voted to become bacon.14 International Humanist News May 2005

Human Rights

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The visit of Ayaan Hirsi Ali to Geneva to speak at the parallel conference “Victims of Jihad” co-sponsored by IHEU attracted a lot of media attention. A Somali refugee in the Netherlands, and now a member of the Dutch parliament, she became famousovernight when, with Theo van Gogh, she produced a short TV film called “Submission” portraying the plight of Muslim women under Islam. She gained world-wide attention after van Gogh was murdered by an Islamist in an Amsterdam street and she was forced to go into hiding. In April she was named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Her appeal at the conference to governments to do more for Muslim women suffering oppression in Muslim communities in the West was widely reported. Unfortunately, the Islamists have a long reach with sympathisers and apologists in the media in even the most liberal of states. A scurrilous report of Ayaan’s visit appeared in the prestigious Dutch paper, NRC Handelsblad under the title “Lobbyist for Israel deploys Hirsi Ali against Islam”. (Our crime was that one of the organisers of our conference is Jewish.) The report was a melange of distortion, innuendo and falsehood. Although the paper published a grudging partial correction three days later, it refused to publish in full our letter of protest.