Tag: U.N

Despite their human rights records, the United Nations has elected the Islamic Republic of Iran, Cuba, Sudan and several other repressive regimes to influential committees charged with promoting human rights.

Human rights activists see this as a major setback in their campaign to end abuse and to create open and healthy societies.

The Economic and Social Council, a U.N. body based in New York, elected Iran to a four-year term on its Commission on the Status of Women, the world’s top intergovernmental organization dedicated to promoting women’s rights. Tehran also won a seat on the 19-nation Committee on NGOs (non-government organizations), a position that enables Tehran to champion and silence human rights organisations, depending on their views.

The move prompted U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power to tweet: “Yet again Iran ran unopposed & was “elected” to Commission on Status of Women. Given record on women’s & human rights, this is an outrage.”

Tehran shot back  with a harsh rebuke against Power. “The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejects the baseless accusations raised” by the U.S. Ambassador, Iran wrote in a statement sent to Fox News. “In the past decades,” Iran has “routinely adopted effective and constructive approach in relation to all multilateral issues within the framework of the UN as well as its bilateral relationship with other states [sic],” it said.

The Iranian government’s statement goes on to praise the country, claiming civil society and thousands of NGOs in Iran are “actively pursuing their goals in different areas such as social, economic, environmental, women and human rights…Iran’s active presence in UN bodies will…serve the attainment of non-governmental organization objectives.”

“It is a black day for human rights,” said Hillel Neuer with UN Watch, a U.N. watchdog based in Geneva. Neuer called Iran’s appointments ludicrous. “Last Thursday the Iranian regime beat up and broke the bones of some 30 dissidents in the notorious Evin prison,” he said.

UN Watch has been joined by a chorus of human rights organizations who say they are appalled by accused human rights abusers setting policy on human rights at the U.N.

The U.N. Security Council met late Sunday in emergency session as violence escalated in eastern Ukraine, hours before a Monday morning deadline for pro-Russia protesters to lay down their arms or face Ukrainian troops.

Russia called the meeting shortly after Ukrainian special forces exchanged gunfire Sunday with a pro-Russia militia in an eastern city, and at least one security officer was killed and five others wounded. Ukraine’s president accused its powerful neighbor of fomenting unrest, and announced that his government would deploy armed forces Monday to quash an increasingly bold pro-Russian insurgency.

“At this moment, Ukraine teeters on the brink,” Assistant U.N. Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco told Security Council members.

Ethnic Russians in Ukraine’s east fear that the country’s new pro-Western government will oppress them, and are demanding to have referendums on autonomy and possible annexation by Russia.

Fernandez-Taranco said U.N. monitors in eastern Ukraine have described seeing pro-separatist protesters as being armed with machine guns and sniper rifles.

“The fact is that many of the armed units that we’ve seen were outfitted in bulletproof vests, camouflage uniforms with insignia removed,” U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said. “These armed units … raised Russian and separatist flags over seized buildings and have called referendums and union with Russia. We know who is behind this.”

Russia has tens of thousands of troops massed along Ukraine’s eastern border, and there are fears that Moscow might use the violence in the mainly Russian-speaking region as a pretext for an invasion, in a repeat of events in Crimea weeks ago.

“This is not a war between Ukrainians, this was artificially created,” said Ukraine’s U.N. Ambassador Yuriy Sergeyev.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin denied Western and Ukrainian claims that Moscow was behind the violence, and told U.N. diplomats that Ukraine has been using radical neo-Nazi forces to destabilize its eastern region.

“It is the West that will determine the opportunity to avoid civil war in Ukraine. Some people, including in this chamber, do not want to see the real reasons for what is happening in Ukraine and are constantly seeing the hand of Moscow in what is going on,” Churkin said. “Enough. That is enough.”

He said after the meeting that he hoped Western powers would pressure Ukraine to rethink its deadline for sending in troops.

Tunfire continued to ring out in South Sudan’s capital, Juba, Tuesday as the military “cleared out remnants” of soldiers accused of mounting a coup attempt, the foreign minister said, as more than 13,000 people sought refuge at United Nations facilities.

The coup attempt happened on Sunday when a group of soldiers raided the weapons store within the main army barracks in Juba but were repulsed by loyalists, sparking gunfights Sunday night and early Monday, Foreign Minister Barnaba Marial Benjamin told The Associated Press. He described the alleged coup plotters as “disgruntled” but gave no other details.

At least 26 people, mostly soldiers, have since died in the violence, according to Makur Maker, a senior Ministry of Health official. Other groups put the casualties in the hundreds.

The fighting has forced about 13,000 people to seek shelter inside or in the immediate outskirts of two U.N. facilities in Juba, according to the U.N.

The South Sudanese military has arrested five political leaders with suspected links to the coup attempt and many more are still being traced, said Benjamin. Chief among the wanted is former Vice President Riek Machar, who is now believed to be in hiding after he was identified by President Salva Kiir as the political leader favored by a faction of soldiers who tried to seize power earlier this week, he said.

“They are still looking for more … who are suspected of being behind the coup,” Benjamin said, referring to the military.

The United States Embassy in Juba and the U.N. Mission in South Sudan denied they are harboring Machar, he said.

The hunt for Machar, an influential politician who is one of the heroes of a brutal war of independence waged against Sudan, threatens to send the world’s youngest country into further political upheaval following months of a power struggle between Kiir and his former deputy.

Machar, the deputy leader of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, said he would contest the presidency in 2015 after Machar fired him in July. He has openly criticized Kiir, saying that if the country is to be united it cannot tolerate “one man’s rule or it cannot tolerate dictatorship.”

The international community has repeatedly urged South Sudan’s leaders to exercise restraint amid fears the military’s actions in the aftermath of the attempted coup could spark wider ethnic violence.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon told Kiir in a telephone conversation Tuesday that he expected him “to exercise real leadership at this critical moment, and to instill discipline in the ranks of the (Sudanese military) to stop this fighting among them,” according to Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for the secretary-general’s office.

There are “disturbing reports of ethnically-targeted killings,” with most of the fighting pitting soldiers from Kiir’s majority Dinka tribe against those from the Nuer tribe of Machar, said Casie Copeland, the South Sudan analyst for the International Crisis Group.

“The fighting has been fierce and parts of Juba have been reduced to rubble,” she said. “Reported casualty figures are well over 500 and we should expect this figure to increase. The conduct of the (Sudanese military) in the coming days will be a good indicator of how South Sudan will come out of this and how ethnic diversity will be managed moving forward.”

The oil-rich East African nation has been plagued by ethnic tension since it broke away from Sudan in 2011. In the rural Jonglei state, where the government is trying to put down a rebellion, the military itself faces charges of widespread abuses against the Murle ethnic group of rebel leader David Yau Yau.