via El Rushbo
How the Islamic states dominate the UN Human Rights Council
The fourth session of the new Human Rights Council was held in Geneva from 12 to 30 March 2007, but high hopes that the Council would find a way forward on Darfur were dashed when the Council declined to act on the report of a High-Level Mission to Darfur led by Nobel prizewinner Jodie Williams because of obstruction by the Sudanese government. And the Council further reverted to type when Pakistan pushed through a resolution “combating Defamation of Religions” against numerous objections from the western democracies.
Every year from 1999 to 2005 the Organization of the Islamic Conference, representing the 57 Islamic states, presented a resolution to the UN Commission on Human Rights, called “Combating Defamation of Religions”. While the text of the resolution referred to all religions the preamble made it clear that the sponsors’ concerns related primarily to one religion: Islam. The resolution was adopted every year by typically a two thirds majority. By 2005, the Commission for Human Rights had become widely discredited. In the words of then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan “.. the selectivity and politicizing of its activities [were] in danger of bringing the entire UN system into disrepute”. The Commission was abolished by vote of the UN General Assembly in 2006 and replaced by a shiny new Human Rights Council which met for the first time in March 2006. Hopes were soon dashed however that the newly elected 47 member states of the Council – each pledged to uphold international human rights law - would behave any differently from the 53 members of the old Commission. Of the first four resolutions passed by the Council, three were resolutions condemning Israel. Whatever breaches of human rights law Israel may have committed, it beggars belief that these were the only violations of human rights on the planet worthy of condemnation by the Council. By way of contrast, the Council adopted a resolution which inter-alia congratulated the Sudan for its efforts to bring peace to Darfur.
