Monday, June 19, 2006

Meet the UN Human Rights Council members

The new and improved UNHR Council began functioning today.
The old Commission was packed with human rights violators, who got on as part of regional lists. It met for six weeks only each year and nobody was impressed by its pronouncements.
Here are few of the new stellar members.
Azerbaijan : "Azerbaijan's government has a long-standing record of pressuring opposition political parties and civil society groups and arbitrarily limiting critical expression."

China : "While many governments have praised recent developments in China, the country remains a one-party state that does not hold national elections, has no independent judiciary, leads the world in executions, aggressively censors the Internet."

Pakistan : "Six years after seizing power in a coup d'etat, President Pervez Musharraf's military-backed government did little in 2005 to address ongoing human rights concerns."

Cuba : "Cuba remains a Latin American anomaly: an undemocratic government that represses nearly all forms of political dissent. President Fidel Castro, now in his forty-seventh year in power, shows no willingness to consider even minor reforms."
The fox watches the henhouse. Read the rest [here].

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

In many ways, the U.N. is a discredited body.