Back in 2006 the UN disbanded its Human Rights Commission with Kofi Anan describing it as having a ‘credibility deficit’. A rather polite understatement if ever there was one. In its place was created a new beacon of hope for the world’s oppressed and down trodden called the UN Human Rights Council. But really they all should have saved themselves the bother. This year four Africa nations; Angola, Uganda, Mauritania and Libya ran unopposed for the four seats available to Africa on the Human Rights Council. Elections in which candidates run unopposed, that’s the UN’s version of Democracy for you. But what is so particularly shocking is that Libya’s horrifying ascent to this body of supposed universal moral justice did not scrape by as some terrible peculiarity of the voting system, no it received 80% of the vote. Put more simply Libya only needed 97 countries from the UN’s 192 members. Yet no less than 155 turned out to show their support for Libya taking its place at the Human Rights Council. All of these nations happily ignoring the 37 human rights groups that voiced their protest to Libya assuming such a position. Few debacles could have exposed more crudely the truth about what the UN really stands for.
In case you have never heard of Libya, as perhaps we should assume the countries who voted for it hadn’t, there are one or two things that you should know. The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is headed by one Colonel Kaddafi, easily one of the world’s most long serving and infamous tyrants. Friend of terrorists, scourge of human rights groups; which just so happen to be outlawed in Libya. And if you were wondering how a country that outlaws human rights groups can have a place on a Human Rights Council you might fist want to ask how a country that rejects the UN Charta, as Libya does, can indeed have any involvement in UN proceedings what so ever. Not surprisingly then when it comes to Human Rights abuses Libya is in a league all of its very own. In 2005 the Washington based Freedom House, one of the worlds most well respected political rights groups, gave Libya a 7 on its scale of political freedom. The scale only ranges from 1 to 7 with 1 representing the most politically free countries. So you can work out the rest for yourself.
More recently Colonel Kaddafi has accused none other than Switzerland of mass murder. This bizarre seemingly reasonless accusation may have something to do with the fact that Kaddafi’s son, the delectable Hannibal Kaddafi, was under arrest in Switzerland at the time for beating up one of his servants. Not to be out done Libya promptly retaliated by arresting a Swiss citizen supposedly on grounds of visa violations. To Libya’s credit at least a reason was given for the arrest. Disappearance, torture and arrest without charge are all common place in Libya.
Still Libya won’t find itself alone on the Human Rights Council. At the same time that it was being voted in Qatar was also elected to take one of the Asian seats on the council. Qatar has almost as interesting a record as Libya when it comes to violence against women, exploitation of ethnic minority workers and handing out death sentences as casually as most British courts issue Anti-Social Behavior Orders. Of Course Amnesty International refused to comment on the suitability of Qatar’s membership of the Human Rights Council, an indication of just what a principled organization that has become in recent years.
Any civilized nation should have broken its association with the UN decades ago so as to avoid being further tainted by this sickening organization that lectures democracies on the supposed illegality of their wars while failing miserably to so much as intervene in let alone prevent mass atrocities and genocides. Those countries that care about freedom, democracy and human rights must immediately divest from the UN. Nothing else can save their reputations for complicity in one of the most morally inverted spectacles in modern world history.
In case you have never heard of Libya, as perhaps we should assume the countries who voted for it hadn’t, there are one or two things that you should know. The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya is headed by one Colonel Kaddafi, easily one of the world’s most long serving and infamous tyrants. Friend of terrorists, scourge of human rights groups; which just so happen to be outlawed in Libya. And if you were wondering how a country that outlaws human rights groups can have a place on a Human Rights Council you might fist want to ask how a country that rejects the UN Charta, as Libya does, can indeed have any involvement in UN proceedings what so ever. Not surprisingly then when it comes to Human Rights abuses Libya is in a league all of its very own. In 2005 the Washington based Freedom House, one of the worlds most well respected political rights groups, gave Libya a 7 on its scale of political freedom. The scale only ranges from 1 to 7 with 1 representing the most politically free countries. So you can work out the rest for yourself.
More recently Colonel Kaddafi has accused none other than Switzerland of mass murder. This bizarre seemingly reasonless accusation may have something to do with the fact that Kaddafi’s son, the delectable Hannibal Kaddafi, was under arrest in Switzerland at the time for beating up one of his servants. Not to be out done Libya promptly retaliated by arresting a Swiss citizen supposedly on grounds of visa violations. To Libya’s credit at least a reason was given for the arrest. Disappearance, torture and arrest without charge are all common place in Libya.
Still Libya won’t find itself alone on the Human Rights Council. At the same time that it was being voted in Qatar was also elected to take one of the Asian seats on the council. Qatar has almost as interesting a record as Libya when it comes to violence against women, exploitation of ethnic minority workers and handing out death sentences as casually as most British courts issue Anti-Social Behavior Orders. Of Course Amnesty International refused to comment on the suitability of Qatar’s membership of the Human Rights Council, an indication of just what a principled organization that has become in recent years.
Any civilized nation should have broken its association with the UN decades ago so as to avoid being further tainted by this sickening organization that lectures democracies on the supposed illegality of their wars while failing miserably to so much as intervene in let alone prevent mass atrocities and genocides. Those countries that care about freedom, democracy and human rights must immediately divest from the UN. Nothing else can save their reputations for complicity in one of the most morally inverted spectacles in modern world history.
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