Libyen ut ur FN:s mänskorättsråd

FN:s generalförsamling har uteslutit Libyen från mänskorättsrådet.

UN Watch:
Success: UN Watch thanks UNGA for finally suspending Qaddafi from UN Human Rights Council
Geneva, March 1- UN Watch, which has led the opposition by rights groups and victims to Libya’s presence on the UN Human Rights Council for the past year, said this afternoon’s vote by the General Assembly — which unanimously suspended the Qaddafi regime — was “better late than never.”
“The election of Libya to the world’s top human rights body last May was a shameful act that bolstered Qaddafi’s regime, demoralized his victims, and stained the reputation of the United Nations,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group.
“The 155 UN member states who just last year decided to make Qaddafi a world judge on human rights—and the others who stood by silently—should now ask forgiveness from all the men and women who were victimized by four decades of extrajudicial killings, brutality, torture, international terrorism, enforced disappearances, arbitrary arrests, and oppression,” said Neuer, who is an international lawyer representing victims of Libyan torture in a complaint before an international tribunal. “This includes the families of the 1,200 detainees killed in Abu Salim Prison in June 1996, and of the 270 victims of the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.”
Neuer noted that other gross and systematic violators of human rights continue to sit on the council, including China, Cuba, and Saudi Arabia. “We call on UN member states to turn over a new leaf in the next elections. The practice of disguising the enemies of human rights as arbiters of international justice must stop.”

FN:s mänskorättsråd publicerar rapport som prisar Gadaffis regim

Det är kanske svårt att tro, men se nedan hur medlemmarna i FN:s mänskorättsråd för bara fyra månader sedan prisade Libyen för dess inställning till mänskliga rättigheter.
Situationen blir inte bättre av att det fortfarande är fullt möjligt att rådet den 18 mars antar en rapport som prisar Libyen för dess inställning till mänskliga rättigheter.
Hall of Shame: UN Human Rights Council to adopt report praising Gaddafi regime
UN Watch, which heads the Global NGO Campaign to Remove Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, today called on US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton and UN rights chief Navi Pillay to urge the council president to cancel a planned resolution praising Libya’s human rights record, scheduled to be adopted in the current session.

Libyen ut ur mänskorättsrådet?

UN Watch har en längre tid arbetat för att Libyen skall uteslutas från FN:s mänskorättsråd, efter de senaste dagarnas händelser har äntligen något börjat hända. EU och USA ställer sig nu bakom kravet.

Text från UN Watch hemsida:

NGO Campaign to Remove Libya welcomes new EU draft; but real action needed to stop killings
GENEVA, February 24, 2010 – UN Watch, which heads the Global NGO Campaign to Remove Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, welcomed a new EU draft for tomorrow’s meeting that calls for suspension of the Qaddafi regime from the world’s top human rights body. Click here for text of EU’s new draft resolution.
“The original draft ignored the fact that Libya’s council membership is a moral obscenity that must be rectified immediately,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group, and an international lawyer who represents Libyan torture victims. “After our objections were widely published, the EU thankfully revised their draft. We’re also grateful that that our other demands were met — for a special session, an international inquiry, and required follow-up at the March and June sessions.”
The revised EU draft resolution now “recommends to the United Nations General Assembly, in view of the gross and systematic violations of human rights by the Libyan authorities, the consideration of the application of the [membership suspension] measures.” The African Group, China and Cuba objected to the provision during public consultations today, but it remained unclear if they would vote against it tomorrow.
“Because the council can do no more than call on the UN General Assembly to effect the suspension, we now urge the US, the EU and other states to convene the New York plenary to suspend Libya.”
“While the council draft regrettably stops short of directly condemning Moammar Qaddafi, the resolution makes clear that his regime is regarded by the world as an international criminal. It is, of course, tragic that not a single state ever spoke out earlier. Who knows if things could have turned out differently if members of the regime knew that the world was watching and cared about the basic human rights of the Libyan people.”
“The human rights council meeting is necessary, but hardly sufficient to protect victims of Qaddafi’s slaughter,” said Neuer. We need to see concrete international action, like a no-fly zone. The UN Security Council must take immediate action on the ground to stop the bloodbath. Meanwhile, all it has done is adopt a press statement, and a relatively mild one at that.”

Chronology: The NGO Campaign to Remove Libya From the UN Human Rights Council
May 2010: UN Watch leads 37 NGOs in a protest on the eve of Libya’s election to the UNHRC, with a widely covered media event at UN Headquarters in New York, and a mass email campaign. Countries are urged to oppose Qaddafi’s candidacy. Instead, in a secret ballot, the UN elects Libya by a landslide of 155 out of 192 UNGA votes. UN Watch warns on Swiss TV that Qaddafi’s government is a “murderous and racist regime.” Not a single country speaks out against Libya’s candidacy or election.
September 2010: Libya takes its seat at the council. UN Watch launches a global campaign, supported by 30 NGOs, and victims of Libyan abuses, to remove the Qaddafi regime. To confront the Libyans in the plenary UN Watch brings Bob Monetti, whose 20-year-old son was murdered in Libya’s 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103; Mohamed Eljahmi, brother of slain dissident Fathi Eljahmi; Kristyana Valcheva, one of the five Bulgarian nurses who were framed, imprisoned and tortured for eight years on false charges of poisoning children with HIV; and Ashraf El-Hajouj, the Palestinian doctor framed and tortured together with the nurses. The Libyans and their allied regimes rudely interrupt the speakers. The incident and the victims’ appeal to remove Libya is widely covered by dedicated stories in Voice of America and Agence France Presse, and by a cover story in Sweden’s Neo magazine. “The HRC grants legitimacy to ‘murderous’ Gadaffi regime,” reported Radio Netherlands on UN Watch’s campaign. Yet the UN council and its member states stay silent.
November 2010: When Libya’s abysmal human rights record is addressed under the council’s universal review procedure, UN Watch renews its call for the Qaddafi regime to be removed. The appeal is reported by Germany’s DPA, Swissinfo and elsewhere. Yet the UN council and its member states stay silent.
February 21, 2011: Working closely with Libyan dissident Mohamed Eljahmi — who sounds the alarm on massive atrocities being committed by the Qaddafi regime — UN Watch spearheads an international appeal by 70 human rights groups to remove Libya. The plea for UN action is covered around the world. Three days later, the EU requests a special session of the Human Rights Council, but fails to contest Libya’s council membership.
Yesterday: UN Watch publicly calls on EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton, and the governments of France, Germany, and the UK, to demand Libya’s removal from the council.
Today: Finally, for the first time in the council’s five-year history, the EU calls for the suspension of a council member — Libya — on grounds of committing gross and systematic human rights violations. The vote is tomorrow.
UN Watch has been the leading voice at the United Nations challenging Libyan human rights abuses for several years. To see statements on Libyan abuses click here; for compelling YouTube videos, click here.