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| Buddhist Burmese are told to stop fighting the Bengali Muslims. |
A resolution put forward by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was adopted by a vote of 122 to 10 with 24 abstentions. China, Russia, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam joined Myanmar in voting against the measure as did Belarus, Syria and Zimbabwe.
The resolution calls on the government to allow access for aid workers, ensure the return of all refugees and grant full citizenship rights to the Rohingya. It requests that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appoint a special envoy to Myanmar.
The measure was adopted by the assembly after its budget committee gave the green light to funds for the new position of UN special envoy to Myanmar. More than 650,000 Muslim Rohingya have fled the mainly Buddhist country since the military operation was launched in Rakhine state in late August.
Myanmar authorities insist the campaign
is aimed at rooting out Rohingya militants who attacked police posts on August
25 but the United Nations has said the violence amounts to ethnic cleansing. Last
week, the UN special rapporteur for Myanmar, Yanghee Lee, said she had been
banned from the country and that the government had cut off all cooperation
with her.
UNHRC boss Prince al-Hussein To Step Down
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has said he will not run for a second term amid concerns that the global retreat from human rights makes his position untenable.
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| Rohingya Muslim terrorists and their mutilated Burmese Buddhist victims. |
Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has said he will not run for a second term amid concerns that the global retreat from human rights makes his position untenable.
Mr Al Hussein, a Jordanian prince who previously served as ambassador to
the United States and United Nations, announced his plan in an end-of-year
email to his staff. His term comes to an end next summer. “Next year will be
the last of my mandate,” Mr Al Hussein wrote, in the email which was seen by
the website ForeignPolicy.com.
“After reflection, I have decided not
to seek a second four-year term. To do so, in the current geopolitical context,
might involve bending a knee in supplication; muting a statement of advocacy;
lessening the independence and integrity of my voice – which is your voice.”
The letter painted a bleak picture of
the state of human rights one year after President Donald Trump was elected on
a platform that relegated the importance of human rights in American foreign
policy, and proposed the reintroduction of torture. Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson further indicated the shift in policy three months into his tenure,
when he said the US should be careful not to let values like human rights
create "obstacles" to the pursuit of its interests.
Mr Al Hussein has been particularly
critical of Mr Trump’s ban on travel to the US from some Muslim-majority
countries, denouncing it as “mean-spirited” and illegal under international
human rights law. He continued to criticise the Trump administration throughout
the year for its handling of a series of human rights issues, including its
attacks on journalists and the judiciary.
“Greater and more consistent leadership
is needed to address the recent surge in discrimination… against ethnic and
religious minorities,” he told a meeting of the UN human rights council in
Geneva in March.
Other world powers from China to Europe
have also been accused by advocates of back-peddling from their historical
commitment to human rights, amid increasingly tough restrictions on migrants.
However, UN Secretary General Antonio
Guterres has been more restrained in speaking out against human rights abuses
by world powers, opting instead to work behind the scenes with governments such
as the US to defuse conflicts. Mr Guterres also urged Mr Al Hussein to rein
back his attacks on Mr Trump, amid concerns it could alienate the US from the
UN.
“It has been an arduous year for many
of us,” Mr Al Hussein reflected in his email. He said his final months on the
job would be dedicated to promoting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
the document that underpins the UN’s role in championing human rights, which
will celebrate its 70th anniversary in 2018.
He characterised that campaign as one
of “mobilisation and defiance, pushing back the many trends across the world
that seem to negate and deny the value of human rights. There are many months
ahead of us: months of struggle, perhaps, and even grief — because although the
past year has been arduous for us, it has been appalling for many of the people
we serve,” he wrote.
(Blogger’s Notes: The United States's constant threat of funding cut to
UNHRC might be the reason UN boss Guterres putting pressure on the Muslim boss
of the UN human rights body which is quickly becoming a hypocrite oxymoron
organization being controlled by the worst abusers of human rights such as
Saudi Arabia and Venezeula.)
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| Prince al-Hussein's henchwoman Yanghee Lee was banned by Burma. |
