Luis Alfonso de Alba is the council's president, the one in the video who acts so officiously - harrumph, harrumph - in the final minute of the video, the one who states he won't "tolerate any similar statements" and requires a "minimum of proper conduct," etc.
Harrumph!
Well, decorum is certainly needed in settings of that type and kind. Still, when the duplicity, manipulations, deceit and general malignancy become such an integral part of the institution that is putatively devoted to "peace" and "human rights," then it's time for some stringent and forthright, even bruising commentary. A pity that officiousness and duplicity, in the person of council president Luis Alfonso de Alba himself, seems to have trumped the proceedings.
Power, in the hands of the officious and the putatively high-minded, can be voracious.
U.N. rights body ends scrutiny of Iran, Uzbekistan
Mon 26 Mar 2007, 17:06 GMT
GENEVA, March 26 (Reuters) - The United Nations top human rights body voted on Monday to end routine scrutiny of Iran and Uzbekistan despite accusations of abuse in both countries.
The 47-state Human Rights Council accepted the recommendation of a five-country working party, whose members included Zimbabwe, that they be removed from the so-called 1503 procedure under which accusations of violations are discussed in closed-door, confidential sessions.
The decision had been widely expected because a majority of states on the Council, launched last year to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, oppose the singling out of individual states for special attention.
"We are very disappointed at the decision. We think that it is deeply regrettable that the Council will not have the opportunity to consider the human rights situation in those countries," a U.S. spokeswoman said.
"This decision is completely out of step with the view expressed by the (U.N.) General Assembly which only a few months ago voted again to condemn human rights violations in Iran," she added.
snip
Before taking the decision, the Council had heard accusations from individuals and groups alleging continuing arbitrary executions, judicial failings and the use of torture in Iranian jails, diplomats said.
snip
Uzbekistan, an authoritarian nation of 27 million people, which exports cotton, gold, natural gas and oil, has long faced pressure from the West over its rights record.
The United States and European Union criticised the former Soviet state for using indiscriminate force to quash protests in the town of Andizhan in May 2005, killing hundreds. Uzbekistan has said the Andizhan violence was organised by Islamist rebels.
Human rights groups, including the New York-based Human Rights Watch, had said that ending monitoring of Uzbekistan would amount to the sanctioning of abuses.
The UN is truly beyond belief. Does anybody doubt how absurd this is? On the one hand they object to "singling out nations" - even nations which clearly abuse people on a continuous basis - yet - they have formed a permanent committee to focus on Israel!
The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border - according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
Neuer added that he received that information from diplomatic sources.
It's one of at least four anti-Israel actions he expects the council to take during its fourth session, which started in Geneva on Monday and runs through April 5, Neuer told The Jerusalem Post from Geneva.
The UN body was created in June to replace the Human Rights Commission, which was scrapped because it had a faulty membership composition and repeatedly singled out Israel.
But since its inception, the 47-member body - which includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China - has continued to single out the Jewish State. It has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions, and none against any other nation. It has also held three special sessions on Israel.
Melanie Phillips took note of this same video and statement before Luis Alfonso de Alba and the UN "human rights" council," summarizing it nicely:
"The UN’s first instinct in defence of human rights — suppress the truth in support of tyranny."
The truth represented in that succinct telling should be of some moment, even for U.N. enthusiasts and trans-nationalist supporters in general. The U.N. is not merely an irritant but too often is an all too real mendacious and malevolent force, critically so at times.
"The United Nations’ nourishment of terrorism (a concept it has yet to define) reached a new low last Friday. On March 23, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly’s Sixth Committee — its lead legal body comprised of all 192 member states — recommended that observer status be granted to the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), an entity that has been directly involved in paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers."
This is the kind of stuff I believed was only in stories, like those of our Prophets (Elijah in front of Ahab, for example). Now we see it before our very eyes and ears.
Clearly like the League of Nations before it, the UN Council is run by a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats. The Food for Oil in Iraq was an example of just how low these people have become. As an American, I think we need to withdraw support for the UN and start adequate publicity to explain exactly why.
If the various countries that make up the UN Council showed the slightest integrity, they would have been all over the council to make the changes necessary.
But, it is a reflection of the govermental members - they are in it for whatever gain they can get.
I think that the UN HR Council should be disbanded.
LOVE what this guy says. Too bad that it is so obviously falling on deaf ears......
Luis Alfonso de Alba is the council's president, the one in the video who acts so officiously - harrumph, harrumph - in the final minute of the video, the one who states he won't "tolerate any similar statements" and requires a "minimum of proper conduct," etc.
Harrumph!
Well, decorum is certainly needed in settings of that type and kind. Still, when the duplicity, manipulations, deceit and general malignancy become such an integral part of the institution that is putatively devoted to "peace" and "human rights," then it's time for some stringent and forthright, even bruising commentary. A pity that officiousness and duplicity, in the person of council president Luis Alfonso de Alba himself, seems to have trumped the proceedings.
Power, in the hands of the officious and the putatively high-minded, can be voracious.
But yet -
U.N. rights body ends scrutiny of Iran, Uzbekistan
Mon 26 Mar 2007, 17:06 GMT
GENEVA, March 26 (Reuters) - The United Nations top human rights body voted on Monday to end routine scrutiny of Iran and Uzbekistan despite accusations of abuse in both countries.
The 47-state Human Rights Council accepted the recommendation of a five-country working party, whose members included Zimbabwe, that they be removed from the so-called 1503 procedure under which accusations of violations are discussed in closed-door, confidential sessions.
The decision had been widely expected because a majority of states on the Council, launched last year to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, oppose the singling out of individual states for special attention.
"We are very disappointed at the decision. We think that it is deeply regrettable that the Council will not have the opportunity to consider the human rights situation in those countries," a U.S. spokeswoman said.
"This decision is completely out of step with the view expressed by the (U.N.) General Assembly which only a few months ago voted again to condemn human rights violations in Iran," she added.
snip
Before taking the decision, the Council had heard accusations from individuals and groups alleging continuing arbitrary executions, judicial failings and the use of torture in Iranian jails, diplomats said.
snip
Uzbekistan, an authoritarian nation of 27 million people, which exports cotton, gold, natural gas and oil, has long faced pressure from the West over its rights record.
The United States and European Union criticised the former Soviet state for using indiscriminate force to quash protests in the town of Andizhan in May 2005, killing hundreds. Uzbekistan has said the Andizhan violence was organised by Islamist rebels.
Human rights groups, including the New York-based Human Rights Watch, had said that ending monitoring of Uzbekistan would amount to the sanctioning of abuses.
http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL26651812.html
The UN is truly beyond belief. Does anybody doubt how absurd this is? On the one hand they object to "singling out nations" - even nations which clearly abuse people on a continuous basis - yet - they have formed a permanent committee to focus on Israel!
http://www.israel-un.org/israel_un/uneasyrelation.htm
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173700686993&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
The United Nation's Human Rights Council is expected to place Israel under permanent investigation for its "violations" of international law in the territories - until such time as it withdraws to the pre-1967 border - according to Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.
Neuer added that he received that information from diplomatic sources.
It's one of at least four anti-Israel actions he expects the council to take during its fourth session, which started in Geneva on Monday and runs through April 5, Neuer told The Jerusalem Post from Geneva.
The UN body was created in June to replace the Human Rights Commission, which was scrapped because it had a faulty membership composition and repeatedly singled out Israel.
But since its inception, the 47-member body - which includes Cuba, Saudi Arabia and China - has continued to single out the Jewish State. It has issued eight anti-Israel resolutions, and none against any other nation. It has also held three special sessions on Israel.
snip
This is just so ridiculous.
Melanie Phillips took note of this same video and statement before Luis Alfonso de Alba and the UN "human rights" council," summarizing it nicely:
"The UN’s first instinct in defence of human rights — suppress the truth in support of tyranny."
The truth represented in that succinct telling should be of some moment, even for U.N. enthusiasts and trans-nationalist supporters in general. The U.N. is not merely an irritant but too often is an all too real mendacious and malevolent force, critically so at times.
See also Anne Bayefsky at NRO, opening graph:
"The United Nations’ nourishment of terrorism (a concept it has yet to define) reached a new low last Friday. On March 23, 2007, the United Nations General Assembly’s Sixth Committee — its lead legal body comprised of all 192 member states — recommended that observer status be granted to the Islamic Development Bank Group (IDB), an entity that has been directly involved in paying the families of Palestinian suicide bombers."
h/t A/F
This is the kind of stuff I believed was only in stories, like those of our Prophets (Elijah in front of Ahab, for example). Now we see it before our very eyes and ears.
HaShem is on the move, as always!
The meaningless forum for meaningless purpose, in fact. But at least they got a good talking to...
Which, at the end of the day, is kinda pointless. Unfortunately.
Thanks for publicizing this. Great stuff.
Clearly like the League of Nations before it, the UN Council is run by a bunch of self-serving bureaucrats. The Food for Oil in Iraq was an example of just how low these people have become. As an American, I think we need to withdraw support for the UN and start adequate publicity to explain exactly why.
If the various countries that make up the UN Council showed the slightest integrity, they would have been all over the council to make the changes necessary.
But, it is a reflection of the govermental members - they are in it for whatever gain they can get.
I think that the UN HR Council should be disbanded.
re: Louise Arbour & War Crimes (hers)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/041708D.shtml