Thanks to almost-president Gore, Katrina, and the UN's accumulation of warnings from scientists all over the world, climate change can no longer be ignored. The new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has placed the potential impact of climate change first on his agenda. The UN's annual major General Assembly in September adopted climate change as its central theme.

IHEU was prevented from speaking this week following the Special Rapporteur on Racism, Doudou Diene's report on "Islamophobia". Only four NGOs were able to speak in the total of 10 minutes allotted to NGOs. NGO participation at the HRC is becoming more myth than reality.

In the "interactive dialogue" following a presentation on Freedom of Religion or Belief by Special Rapporteur, Asma Jahangir, IHEU defended freedom of expression and highlighted the distinction between protection for the rights of believers, and illegitimate attempts to protect ideas, beliefs and practices from valid criticism.

International Humanist and Ethical Union
World Population Foundation

Human Rights Council, Fourth Session 14 - 30 March 2007
Statement by IHEU main representative, Roy W. Brown, 29 March 2007

Defamation of Religions

Mr President.

In its submission on Combating Defamation of Religions to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva IHEU has damned the current process at the UN as "unnecessary, flawed and morally wrong". In the submission, IHEU affirms that each individual should be absolutely free to form, hold or change his or her beliefs and condemns any attempts at stereotyping of religions, racial profiling of individuals, and any and all calls for violence in the name of religion or God. IHEU also expresses deep concerned that the exercise to combat ‘defamation of religions' could compromise established freedoms including freedom of expression, freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.

Resolutions on Defamation of Religion (originally "Defamation of Islam") were adopted by the former UN Commission on Human Rights in 1999 and every year until its abolition in 2006. The IHEU submission says that the very concept of ‘defamation of religion’ is flawed, since it is individuals, both believers and non-believers alike, who have rights, not religions.

IHEU with other NGOs represented at the United Nations has again called for action to resolve the breakdown of the rule of law in Sudan. In a statement to the Human Rights Committee, the group of experts in Geneva reporting to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the NGOs said that the massive violations of human rights in Darfur endangered the implementation of civil and political rights in the country as a whole. The Committee has no powers of investigation but it takes evidence and makes recommendations.

Even in his worst nightmares former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan could hardly have dreamed when he called for the replacement of the failing Commission for Human Rights by a new Human Rights Council, that he was driving the first nail into the coffin of human rights at the United Nations (Roy Brown reports from Geneva). The last nail was hammered home on Tuesday 19 June 2007 when, after a year of often heated debate, the Council adopted without a vote a new set of procedures that will permanently limit its ability to deal effectively with human rights violations.

The following oral statement was made to the Human Rights Council in Geneva by Babu Gogineni on 19 March 2007 on behalf of IHEU and WPF.

Mr President,

The practice of child marriage has all but disappeared from Western society, but is still all too prevalent elsewhere. It runs hand in hand with other forms of violence against girls and young women.

The oral statement by WPF and IHEU was one of only two during the debate on the rights of the child at the 4th session of the Human Rights Council to address the horror of child marriage.

The report (below) on the fourth session of the Human Rights Council that ended on 30 March concentrates on two substantive issues where resolutions were actually adopted: Darfur and Defamation of Religions. What it does not cover, however, are the gaping holes where resolutions ought to be: against systematic human rights abuse in North Korea, Myanmar (Burma), Iran, Sri-Lanka, China, Zimbabwe and elsewhere, and against torture, summary executions and disappearances. No resolutions were presented or approved on any of these subjects. Pressure continued to be applied by the so-called “like-minded” states to wind down investigation by special rapporteurs of specific cases human rights abuse in their countries, while several countries, including Israel and the Sudan had refused to cooperate with missions to their territory. Particularly disturbing was the decision of the Council in closed session to end the monitoring of human rights abuse in Iran and Uzbekistan even as the human rights situation in both of these countries continues to deteriorate.