UN Champions Islam

Further to my Tuesday post on proceedings of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which have now concluded, UN Watch has expressed its disappointment over the Council's failure to address the vast majority of human rights abuses occurring around the world.

Sharing the disbelief expressed on this blog two weeks ago, the Geneva-based non-governmental organisation is particularly appalled by the Council's rejection of the Williams report into Sudan's "large-scale international crimes in Darfur," noting that in its nine months of existence, the Council, which is dominated by Sudan's allies in the African and Islamic groups, has condemned only one country in the entire world for human rights violations: Israel. At this session, the Council passed yet another resolution—its ninth—against the Jewish state.

Furthermore, despite the objections and abstentions of nearly half of its members, the Council also adopted an Islamic Group-sponsored resolution against "defamation of religions." As UN Watch notes, this is "an attempt to suppress perceived offenses against Islam and even to justify violent reactions thereto. Not only does the resolution refer to Islam alone among the world's religions, it is inconsistent with free speech protections and with the fundamental principle that international human rights law is about protecting individuals, not religions."