International Human Rights Day? Not this year at the UN
Today is International Human Rights Day, but it feels like there is little to celebrate. The will of the world's most authoritarian and fascist regimes is prevailing at the UN in one incident after another in a process that is decimating the original spirit of the UN's establishment, which was to protect and further human rights, not to cripple and erode them.
Last week the UN General Assembly approved a revised resolution on extrajudicial, arbitrary and summary executions with the removal of a specific reference to sexual orientation as an unacceptable reason for executions, after several Arab and African countries banded together in a bid to have the reference removed. Consequently, the United Nations, the world body mandated to uphold the universalism of human rights, opted not to defend the rights of human beings not to be murdered by their governments on account of their sexual orientation.
And now, the UN "Human Rights" Council (the saddest joke of the decade) is considering a draft resolution on “combating defamation of religions” sponsored by a derisive Morocco on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (Morocco also put forward the amendment to remove "sexual orientation" from the executions resolution, alongside bigot buddy Mali). Dan Shapiro, of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, writes an excellent piece in today's Calgary Beacon pointing out how the resolution "is incoherent because it targets the wrong kind of discrimination and protects the wrong entities. Individuals have human rights to be protected; ideas, ideologies, religions and states do not." Shapira further points out how such a resolution threatens to favour one interpretation of a faith over another, marginalizing members of a religious community who do not adhere to the dominant interpretation (too often the conservative interpretation):
Belief systems such as religions are not homogenous. Blasphemy laws exacerbate, rather than reduce, discrimination based on religion. Such laws violate state neutrality, since the state evaluates competing religious claims and punishes the dissenting minority.
French philosopher and writer Pascal Bruckner has succinctly pointed out the total lack of humanity in blindly shielding religions from criticism and in our hypersensitivity over offending the faithful, even when the faithful are brutish, backwards and mean:
it is one thing to recognise the convictions and rites of fellow citizens of different origins, and another to give one's blessing to hostile insular communities that throw up ramparts between themselves and the rest of society. How can we bless this difference if it excludes humanity instead of welcoming it?
And last night, the UN chose to sit out the Nobel Peace Prize awards ceremony for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who himself could not attend, forbidden by his police-state captors as he languishes in a Chinese prison. Other countries who also dodged the ceremony, as a result of bullying from the Chinese Government, include Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, and Vietnam. In a scathing article in today's Huffington Post, the Foundation for Human Rights' Thor Halvorssen questions the UN's decision to hold competing simultaneous events with the Nobel ceremony and the UN's evading some of the more pressing human rights issues in favour of topics like "the 'situation' of black women in Europe." Halvorssen further points out the key UN figures missing in Oslo:
Sadly, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights did not attend, as Navanethem Pillay declined the invitation with the excuse that she never received one. Pillay was, in fact, invited and I confirmed this with the person who was in direct email contact with her office.
Pillay hosted World Human Rights Day at U.N. headquarters at the same time as the Nobel ceremony. Pillay's deer-in-headlights response was that she couldn't disappoint the human rights defenders she invited to Geneva by traveling to Oslo. And Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did not attend as he headlined a similar U.N. event in New York.
The UN has gone on vacation from its principles and left its house in the care of its wily teenage children, naïvely trusting that they won't burn the place down. And perhaps the UN feels that letting the despots have the run of the place for a while will tide over those member states who really don't deserve a seat at the grown-ups' table in the first place, in light of their persistent bad behaviour. But it is Bruckner again who reminds us that "appeasement politics only increase their appetite. The hope that benevolence alone will disarm the brutes remains for the moment unfounded."
Lauryn Oates is a Contributing Writer for The Propagandist
