Category Archives: UN HRC
Another look at the Goldstone report, and the response to the Israeli gynecologist who testified
UN Watch Oral Statement
Delivered by Dr. Mirela Siderer, 29 September 2009
Agenda Item 7: Report of the fact-finding mission on Gaza
My name is Dr. Mirela Siderer. I am a gynecologist living in Ashkelon, Israel.
Judge Richard Goldstone, in July you invited me to testify. I told you my story. I am known by my patients — including many women from Gaza. For me, every human being is equal. Continue Reading →
UN troubled by minaret initiative
From Swissinfo.ch
United Nations human rights specialists have expressed concerns over November’s anti-minaret vote and “discriminatory” poster campaign in Switzerland.
Swiss anti minarette poster
The comments by the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Committee were made in conclusions on Swiss progress in implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which is monitored by the body of experts.
Switzerland should “strenuously ensure respect of freedom of religion and firmly combat incitement to discrimination, hostility and violence”, the committee declared.
Among other recommendations, they said the Federal Commission against Racism should be strengthened to investigate all cases of racial discrimination and incitement to national, racial or religious hatred. Otherwise, an independent mechanism able to initiate legal action should be set up. Continue Reading →
Repost: Burn Koran, a tribute.
I posted this in June of 2009. However, given the horrifying new information (to me at least) that Obama and Egypt slipped a bill through the U.N. eliminating the crucial right to criticize or attack irrational religious authority, I thought Vlad was due to re-post this short little video. Please enjoy the music, but read the captions as they go by. This video now in many countries is punishable by death for having made it and perhaps even for having watched it and now, thanks to Obama and others, the legitimacy to persecute those who would question or even ridicule the irrational, the tyrants who operate under the guise of religion, the true purveyors of hate, may now find themselves on the wrong side of the law, in nations which formerly represented progress, freedom, and logical thought.
Link: 
British officer: Israel most moral army in the world. U.N. Watch
For more on this video visit U.N. Watch:
Thank you, Mr. President.
I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee. Continue Reading →
UNHRC: Reopen the Goldstone Report Because it Isn’t Critical Enough of Israel
Goldstone:
Now take aim and…..
This is why the Arabs do what they do. Hamas launches rockets, mortars and missiles discriminately into Israeli civilian centers, while the UNSC or the UNHRC fails to issue any resolutions specifically condemning the unprovoked attacks, let alone condeming them as acts or war and aggression and war crimes.
Every Kassem missile launched towards Israel is a war crime, because the weapon has no other use than to sow fear into the general population, due to its capacity to kill any person standing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Designing, funding, manufacturing and the launching of them consititute a war crime, but as of yet, no one at the UN seems bothered to press the point.
That is why the Arabs insist on using them, they know that the UN will not hold them accountable, thus making the UN an accomplice to the crime. The Arabs fire off their missiles knowing full well that they will at some point, cause an Israeli reaction, and then when that happens, they’ll try to maximize the carnage on their side in order to drag Isael before the world and point an accusing finger. “Look what the Jews have done”.
“The poor Palestinians” boo hoo hooo. It’s a scheme played over and over with a more than willing international community ready to stand “in moral judgement of the Jews”. It’s another reaon why the UN should be dismantled and a league of democratic states rise from its ashes, effectively rejecting every Arab Muslim regime in the world, while blocking any future Non-alligned movement from ever taking control of its branches. KGS
SCREW THE UN
The UN Human Rights Council will reopen the debate about alleged war crimes in Gaza later this week after Palestinians succeeded in gathering enough support to call a special meeting, officials said Tuesday.
The debate will start Thursday, a day after the UN Security Council in New York discusses the Goldstone report, which accuses Israel and Hamas of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during their December 27-January 18 war.
Israel has rejected the report, claiming the investigators led by former South African judge Richard Goldstone were biased against the Jewish state and misled by Palestinian propaganda.
UN officials say 18 of the council’s 47 members signed a motion calling for the debate. The backers are: Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Indonesia, Jordan, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Senegal.
PM Netanyahu’s Remarks at the Start of the Cabinet Meeting
01/10/2009
Following are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks at the start of the Cabinet meeting today:
“In the next 24 hours, a vote will take place in Geneva in the framework of the council known as the United Nations Human Rights Council. I remind you that in recent years, this council has made more decisions against Israel than against all other 180 counties in the world.
Today, if it should decide to forward what is known as the Goldstone report, it will strike a severe blow to three things:
First of all, it will strike a severe blow to the war against terrorism since it will afford total legitimization to terrorists who fire upon civilians and who hide behind civilians. To those who – from international platforms, and using international law – attack and condemn the victim who legitimately defends himself, this is a mortal blow to the war on terrorism.
Secondly, it will strike a mortal blow to the stature of the United Nations. It will return it to its darkest days, in which it could make the most absurd decisions, which would empty it of all substance and significance.
Thirdly, and perhaps the most immediate and obvious of all, forwarding the decision of what is known as the Goldstone report, would strike a fatal blow to the peace process. Because Israel will no longer be able to take additional steps and take risks for peace if its right to self-defense is denied.
Now, the decision on whether to forward this report which will impair both the struggle against terrorism and stature of the United Nations, and strike a mortal blow to the peace process, is a decision of those same 50 countries which are now convening in Geneva. I hope that a majority will show equanimity. We have no confidence in this; usually there is an automatic majority against us. But if there is such a majority, this severe blow will be avoided, and if there is no such majority, the responsibility will be on those countries that lacked balance.”
09-10-01, Benjamin Netanyahu, “PM Netanyahu’s Remarks at the Start of the Cabinet Meeting,” pmo.gov.il, 1 October 2009, http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOEng/Communication/Spokesman/2009/10/spokestart011009.htm (accessed 1 October 2009).
UN Watch: Israeli doctor wonders why UN ignores her testimony.
Once again, the UN shows that it is the sock puppet of the OIC, and renders all verdicts against Israel well before any actual investigation gets done. Below the video I will put the text of the testimony and any links I can.
Geneva, September 29, 2009 — The U.N. Human Rights Council plenary witnessed a dramatic face-off today when the head of its controversial “fact-finding” mission on Gaza — in which Israel was declared guilty from the start — was unexpectedly confronted by one of his own witnesses.
In a surprise appearance arranged by the Geneva human rights organization UN Watch, Dr. Mirela Siderer — an Israeli doctor who was brutally disfigured in 2008 by a rocket attack fired from Gaza into her Ashkelon medical clinic — pointedly accused Goldstone of ignoring her July oral testimony in his report, and of failing to disclose material information concerning the prior statements of the Human Rights Council and panel members declaring Israel guilty in advance. Click for video. The speech was published in full today by Canada’s National Post, and covered widely in Switzerland, Israel and worldwide.
Sitting on the dais, Goldstone was visibly shaken by Dr. Siderer’s challenge and scrambled for a copy of her speech. His response to the plenary ignored 7 of her questions, and inadequately responded to the 8th. See full text and video below. For UN Watch’s play-by-play Twitter of today’s heated debate, click here.
UN Watch Plenary Address
U.N. Human Rights Council Debate on Goldstone Report
Agenda Item 7: “Human rights situation in Palestine
and other occupied Arab territories”
Delivered by Dr. Mirela Siderer, Geneva, September 29, 2009
My name is Dr. Mirela Siderer. I am a gynecologist living in Ashkelon, Israel.
Judge Goldstone, in July you invited me to testify. I told you my story. I am known by my patients — including many women from Gaza. For me, every human being is equal.
On May 14, 2008, my life was changed forever. I was working in my clinic. Suddenly, the building was hit by a missile, fired from Gaza. I was terribly wounded. Blood was everywhere. My patient was also wounded, and more than 100 others. Next month will be my eighth operation.
Judge Goldstone, I told you all of this, in detail. I testified in good faith. You sent me this letter, saying, “Your testimony is an essential part of the Mission’s fact-finding activities.”
But now I see your report. I have to tell you: I am shocked.
Judge Goldstone, in a 500-page report, why did you completely ignore my story? My name appears only in passing, in brackets, in a technical context.
I feel humiliated.
Why are there only two pages about Israeli victims like me, who suffered thousands of rockets over eight years?
Why did you choose to focus on the period of my country’s response, but not on that of the attacks that caused it?
Why did you not tell me that this council judged Israel guilty in advance, in its meeting of last January?
Why did you not tell me that members of your panel signed public letters judging Israel guilty in advance?
Judge Goldstone, you, too, signed such a letter, saying you were “shocked” about Gaza.
But where were you when Gaza attacked my medical clinic, in violation of international human rights and humanitarian law?
Where was this council?
Why were you all silent?
* * *
U.N. Watch gives the UN-HRC a well deserved spanking. Sept. 22, 09
English with French Subtitles
The U.N., Refugees, and the college campus
As I write this, the government of Yemen is launching attacks on its Shia minority to quell an uprising almost certainly sponsored by The Islamic Republic of Iran. As a result, thousands of Sunni’s are being displaced and fleeing claiming refugee status in Saudi Arabia. The government of Saudi is predictably, sending them back as quick as they come.
I suppose at this point it does not come as a shock to anyone that college campus’s all over Europe and North America are not screaming at the horrible injustices being committed by the Saudis against fellow Sunni Muslims by sending them back to a conflict zone. Neither would it come as a shock that no one is talking about Yemen’s attacking of fellow Muslims. Or the Shia minority attacks on Yemeni government assets. The Muslim on Muslim atrocities here are legion and on all sides. But if Israel shoots one terrorist in the act of killing Israeli school kids and so on we will all know that man’s name and a street will be named after him in Gaza.
Most people do not even know that the UN has two distinct refugee organizations, one for ‘Palistinians’ and one for the rest of the world with radically different rules. For example, if a person is born to a refugee they are not considered a refugee but a citizen of the country they are born in. However, the great grandchildren of people who left Israel to get out of the way of invading Egyptian or Syrian tanks on the week that Israel was founded as a nation, these people are in a category all their own, and they and all their descendants remain refugees in perpetuity until such time as the nation of Israel is destroyed and they take whatever place their Islamic leaders tell them to. As a consequence we hear endless laments about how the refugees in Gaza are treated, something which puzzles the hell out of me as how can they be refugees in Gaza when Gaza itself is the nation they where born in and are in control of, (Isn’t that like being a Canadian Refugee in a camp just outside Toronto?) but very few of us will be aware of the refugee crisis in Yemen, or Saudi Arabia’s, one of the richest per capita nations in the world, refusal to allow in one Sunni refugee from a conflict they may in fact be responsible for.
Eeyore for Vladtepesblog.
Link:
NGO: Academic should quit Cast Lead inquiry
U.N Watch does it’s usual excellent job of cathing the absurd and the biased. I doubt at this point anyone would be surprised that The U.N. would appoint someone who openly denies Israel the right to defend itself against rocket attacks to a commission to determine the legality of events in operation Cast Lead.
Eeyore
Analysis and Commentary from UN Watch in Geneva
August 24, 2009 — Issue 200
UN Watch today sent a request to UN Human Rights Council President Alex van Meuwen, asking him to take action within seven days, if necessary, on its motion to disqualify Prof. Christine Chinkin from the council’s inquiry on Gaza on grounds of bias. Today’s Jerusalem Post features the following report on the UN Watch legal brief.
NGO: Academic should quit Cast Lead inquiry
Jonny Paul, correspondent in LONDON
Jerusalem Post
August 24, 2009
A European non-government organization has called on the UN to remove a British academic from its recent inquiry into alleged human rights violations in Gaza, over statements made rejecting Israel’s right to self-defense against rocket attacks.
Geneva-based UN Watch submitted a 28-page legal brief to the UN last week calling on the UN fact-finding mission to disqualify London School of Economics law professor Christine Chinkin over prior statements she made that bring her impartiality in question. Click here for PDF of UN Watch legal brief Continue Reading →
U.N hypocrisy. U.N. Watch by way of National Post
Last week, not for the first time, the world witnessed state-sanctioned violence against protesters in Iran and China. Yet the United Nations was instead focused on Israel, due to unprecedented hearings held by a UN inquiry into the Gaza conflict of six months ago. This was precisely the goal of the body that organized the inquiry, the discredited UN Human Rights Council.
The inquiry’s lead investigator is former international prosecutor Justice Richard Goldstone. From the beginning, the terms of his mandate have been unclear. The original council resolution in January began by finding Israel guilty of “massive violations,” and then created a “fact-finding mission” to support its pre-determined conclusion. At the Human Rights Council, where tyrannies are the majority, such upside-down justice is the norm.
Goldstone, however, claims that he accepted the task — which had been rejected by former UN rights chief Mary Robinson — only after the council president expanded the examination to include both sides. In contrast to the original mandate, Goldstone speaks only of “alleged” violations. In other words, he is trying to conduct a genuine inquiry despite having been appointed to a farcical one. It’s a tricky feat.
When the inquiry last week invited not only Palestinians to speak, but Israeli victims as well, Goldstone introduced something new to the UN. He deserves particular credit for inviting Noam Shalit, father of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, held incommunicado by Hamas since 2006, and denied access to the Red Cross.
Yet whatever balance Goldstone may bring, the inherent problem with his mission is that it plays into the collective strategy of the council’s repressive regimes, which is to cover up abuses in places such as Iran, China, Pakistan, Russia, Egypt and Zimbabwe — all ignored this year — and instead shine a permanent spotlight on Israel. Continue Reading →
Muslims take credit for what they prevent, UN goes along with them.
Here is how typically and historically Islam works in terms of the field of human endeavour. First, Islam does everything it can to prevent advancement and works hard in fact for regression. Tactics include things like burning the library at Alexandria (Caliph Umar I) killing all the people who actually invent new medicines such as Jews and well, infidels and historically, robbing anyone traveling across their lands to get to new things and ideas.
No one seems to remember why in 1492 Columbus was willing to take such enormous risks to find a new sea route to India when Europe was already going back and forth through the middle east. It was far far less dangerous to risk men ships and resources on a harebrained idea that the world could be circumnavigated that way then lose yet another caravan to Muslims in the Arabian Peninsula.
More recently, Muslims take credit for modern microbiological advancements by claiming that Pfizer and other massive drug companies stole modern medicine from Sura’s in Islamic holy books, specifically the ones that refer to ‘dipping one wing of the fly that lands in your drink back into your drink then the other, because while one wing of the fly may have a disease the other wing will have the cure.’ I’m not making this up. Check the link. It has a video!
Today, the most barbaric force on earth, the one that does as much killing in a day as the KKK did in fifty years, the force that would have killed more than communism if it allowed for the technological growth to develop nuclear weapons (they are stealing that technology now though) and the group that threw out hundreds o thousands of Jews and attempts to eliminate all non Muslim from Muslim controlled lands, now has the utter temerity, the unmitigated gall to take credit for the UN’s refugee policies. A policy that Muslims take advantage of because of Islamic cruelty and western governments actually invented and offer to the Muslim world, the UN now agrees Muslims invented. Prepare yourself with an anti emetic for this:
UN: Islamic law is major influence on refugee law, says study
New York, 23 June (AKI) – The 1,400-year-old Islamic custom of welcoming people fleeing persecution has had more influence on modern international refugee law than any other traditional source, according to a new study sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
High Commissioner Antonio Guterres said that more than any other historical source, Islamic law and tradition underpin the modern-day legal framework on which UNHCR bases its global activities on behalf of the tens of millions of people forced from their homes around the world.
This includes the right of everyone to seek asylum as well as prohibitions against sending those needing protection back into danger, Guterres said in the foreword to “The Right to Asylum between Islamic Sharia and International Refugee Law: A Comparative Study.”
In the study, Professor Abu Al-Wafa, Dean of the Law Faculty at Cairo University, describes how Islamic law and tradition respects refugees, including non-Muslims; forbids forcing them to change their beliefs; avoids compromising their rights; seeks to reunite families; and guarantees the protection of their lives and property.
“The international community should value this 14-century-old tradition of generosity and hospitality and recognize its contributions to modern law,” wrote Guterres.
He said that “racism, xenophobia and populist fear-mongering manipulate public opinion and confuse refugees with illegal migrants and even terrorists.”
These attitudes have contributed to misperceptions about Islam, and Muslim refugees – who account for the majority – have paid the price, said Guterres.
“Let us be clear: refugees are not terrorists. They are first and foremost the victims of terrorism. This book reminds us of our duty to counter such attitudes.”
The study, published by UNHCR in cooperation with Naif Arab University and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, is scheduled to be launched on Tuesday at Naif Arab University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
The Religion Of Peace Speaks! Excellent interview with TROP
Here is an excellent interview with the people behind The Religion Of Peace.com, the web site that inspired me to begin Vladtepesblog and many others I’m certain into the ‘counter jihad.’ Its great to hear them actually speak out as typically TROP‘s site is links to news stories and there is very little editorializing if any at all. TROP’s web site is a fantastic tool though as some of their features and pages are excellent resources for debating people who have bought the typical multi culti party line on issues Islamic. In fact, I have won debates as it were using exclusively material from some of TROP’s pages both online and in meat space. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of lucid thought behind the TROP web site.
Eeyore for Vlad:
An Interview with The Religion of Peace From Infidel Task Force
Where does one go on the net to find the most comprehensive listing of Radical Islamic atrocities?
What is the webs most efficient and knowledgeable bank of Islamic resources?
Simple answer, all you have to do is go to:
The Religion Of Peace.com/ (tm)
islam: The Religion of Peace
(and a big stack of dead bodies) (tm)
We had the opportunity to chat for awhile with the creator of the TROP web site. His time is limited, and we are grateful that he shared his opinions and insights on the Radical side of Islam.
ITF:
First of all I would like to thank you for taking the time to speak to the viewers of the Infidel Task Force. Your web site, The Religion of Peace, has always been a mainstay in the fight against radical Islam. How did you get the inspiration to create the site?
TROP:
The on-going rate of violence in the name of Islam was an obvious inspiration for TheReligionofPeace.com, but I should also credit the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) with opening my eyes to the reality of this religion.
Even in the aftermath of 9/11, I actually believed that Muslims would lead the battle against Islamic terrorism and root out the extremists. As it turns out, I simply didn’t understand Islam well enough to know that the Muslim world reserves its true outrage for issues that directly affect their religion – such as those involving cartoons and headscarves.
I began watching CAIR closely that September and was astonished by the complete lack of moral perspective with regard to the relatively trivial matters over which the group was soon back to complaining about following the horrific mass murder of 3,000 innocents in the name of Allah. Later, through studying the Qur’an, Hadith and Sira (biography of Muhammad), I came to better understand the narcissism that is deeply rooted in Islam.
ITF: You have reported on the atrocities of radical Islam for years now. Do you feel it can be a losing battle? Or are people waking up to see what Islam truly is?
TROP:
Ultimately, Islam is its own worst enemy. The more people know about this 7th century desert invention, the more poorly it contrasts with Western liberal values (and common sense).The success of Islam in the West depends largely on self-censorship and our own willingness to jettison critical thinking when it leads to politically incorrect conclusions. After all, there is a reason why Islam is strictly protected from intellectual dissent in Muslim countries – and it is certainly disappointing that there are some here who want to follow suit. Continue Reading →
More blatant UN-HRC hypocracy than usual
Different rules for Israel
National Post Published: Saturday, May 30, 2009
H/T Fred at GAR
If more proof were needed that the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) is a feckless, biased, intellectually corrupt haven for dictators and Islamofascists, the evidence was clearly on display this week. The UNHRC voted to affirm Sri Lanka’s right, justifiably, to self-defence from terror attacks launched against its citizens and territory by the Tamil Tigers. Indeed, the council went further, “condemning all attacks that the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) launched on the civilian population and its practice of using civilians as human shields.” Sri Lanka had every right to protect itself, the council concluded, even at the cost of an estimated 20,000 civilian Tamil lives since the beginning of May alone.
Why, then, when Israel seeks to do the same — protect its citizens and territory from rocket and terror attacks launched from Gaza — does the very same council accuse Israel of being a “genocidal empire?” No quarter is given for the way Hamas –every bit as much a terror organization as the LTTE — hides its rocket bases and ammunition caches in schools, apartments and hospitals and launches its attacks on Israel from behind innocent human targets so that if the Israel Defense Forces wish to retaliate it is impossible for them to do so without taking civilian lives.
We are not disagreeing with the UNHRC’s assessment of Sri Lanka’s actions. Even more than Hamas and its jihadi brothers-in-arms, the Tigers were enthusiastic suicide bombers, targeting shops, public squares and Sri Lankan government offices. So proficient had they become, the Black Tigers — the LTTE’s suicide squads — could calculate how many Sri Lankans would die in their initial blasts and how many more would be cut down by flying glass and debris. After nearly three decades of fighting and at least 70,000 deaths on both sides, we sympathize with the Colombo government’s desire to bring their civil war to an end, once and for all.
Our question is merely: Why such a double standard when it comes to Israel?
Following Israel’s offensive against Gaza earlier this year, members of the council accused the Jewish state of genocide. The UNHRC struck a investigative panel that examined only Israel’s role in the fighting; it ignored the many thousands of provocative rocket attacks launched by Gazans against civilian targets in Southern Israel over the past eight years. It was silent on Hamas’s repeated use of its own people as shields against Israeli counterattacks. What the council praises Sri Lanka for doing, it roundly criticized Israel for.
Council members Cuba, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, China and others — all states with their own spotty records on human rights — voted for both the resolution condemning Israel and the one praising Sri Lanka. Cuba — that paragon of rights defence — even moved to stop EU amendments to the Sri Lankan resolution that would have at least called on Colombo to permit relief workers into the Tamil war zone and pressured both sides to end their violence.
Earlier this year, the UNHRC expressed its solidarity with the Palestinian people and denounced Israel as the “occupying power,” even though Israel had no troops in Gaza in the three years before the most recent incursion.
Accusing Israel of human rights violations, though, seems to be the foremost reason many countries seek seats on the council — that and using their positions to shield their own human rights records from scrutiny.
This week, many Arab member-states wanted the council to go further and accuse Israel of crimes against humanity for killing 600 to 900 Palestinian civilians. We suppose the fact that they were unsuccessful is some kind of ray of hope. Still, the even-more-blatant-than-usual bias of the council, as evidenced by their different approaches toward the very similar situations in Sri Lanka and Israel, shows that neither the council nor the greater UN can be trusted when it comes to the Middle East in particular and human rights in general.