Free Republic

Has the United Nations been of any use to, well, anyone in the past 40 years? Not really. But they sure know where they stand on the war in Israel. The one started after Hamas attacked innocent Israelis and killed hundreds, while kidnapping hundreds more. And the UN? That claims it stands for 'peace, dignity & equality on healthy planet' held a moment of silence for 'the loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere.' On Monday afternoon, the @UN Human Rights Council observed a moment of silence for the loss of innocent lives in the occupied...

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday silenced the executive director of a U.N. watchdog after he drew attention to anti-Semitic comments made by teachers for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). The council cut off U.N. Watch director Hillel Neuer as he was testifying about his watchdog's report on anti-Semitic social media posts from teachers hired by UNRWA, a refugee agency tasked with educating Palestinian children. The report revealed that a teacher in the Gaza Strip had shared a video of Adolf Hitler "to enrich and enlighten your thoughts...

Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) Tweeted: As the UN Human Rights Council marks its 15th anniversary, let the record show that no country in the world has sat longer on this body than 🇨🇺 Cuba's oppressive regime, which won repeated election to 3-year terms in 2006, 2009, 2014, 2017 & 2020. @mbachelet, why are you silent? https://t.co/1yaoO5GCSy

The United Nations must open an inquiry into the horrendous mass murder of political dissidents by Iran’s regime in 1988. It is long overdue. That is a call that dozens of former UN officials and international human rights experts made to the UN this month. I am proud to be one of the signatories.The open letter was signed by over 150 international legal and human rights experts, including former UN High Commissioner Mary Robinson. Former Deputy UN Secretary-General Mark Malloch-Brown also signed.Our letter to the UN calls for the “establishment of an international investigation” looking into the killings of at...

The UN Human Rights Council has released a report detailing a “black list” of international companies operating in Judea and Samaria. The council listed 112 companies which it claims violate international law by continuing to operate in the Jewish communities in the area, including Airbnb, Expedia, and TripAdvisor. Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz responded to the black List, saying that “the UN Human Rights Council’s announcement of the “black list” of business companies is a shameful surrender to the pressures of countries and organizations interested in hurting Israel, even though most countries in the world have refused to join this political...

he UN is a sick joke. It is nothing close to what it was intended to be: an international body in which the nations of the world could work out their differences peacefully, without resorting to war. It is, instead, just an arm of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), advancing the Islamic agenda with willing aid from a cowed and spineless West. It should be defunded immediately and expelled from the United States. “Tyrants celebrate as U.N. elects Venezuela, Mauritania, Libya, Sudan to top rights body,” Africa News, October 18, 2019: The U.N.’s election today of serial abusers of...

“A ‘rigged’ election with no competition” Double standards may not be enough to describe what has become of the United Nations. In some ways, it has no standards at all. This was demonstrated very clearly by last week’s UN General Assembly vote for new members to join the inaptly named Human Rights Council.

According to reports from human rights organizations Saudi Arabia is about to behead female activist in public - Mainstream media is silent to avoid damaging the image of Islam. Esraa al-Ghamgam, a female human rights activist sentenced to death over her human rights activism after serving three years in detention. Her last words as she was sentenced to death were “I am being killed innocent, I will seek justice from God.” Saudi Arabia is the head of the UN Human Rights Council despite its worst human rights record in the world.

National Security Advisor John Bolton on Thursday reaffirmed that the administration’s withdrawal from the U.N. Human Rights Council is being accompanied by an end to U.S. funding for the world body’s human rights office. U.S. taxpayers have long paid the largest share. Bolton told the Associated Press in Geneva that the U.S. will defund the HRC and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), by reducing by the relevant amount the sum that it pays into the regular U.N. operating budget. CNSNews.com reported on the defunding decision in June, on the same day Ambassador to the U.N....

With two of out every five member states of the United Nations not yet having paid their dues for 2018, the world body says it has never been so far behind in receiving contributions by this time of the year, and officials are looking for belt-tightening options. Among the 81 countries yet to pay, by far the biggest amount due is the United States’ contribution of $591.3 million, which comprises 22 percent of the total regular budget for 2018. Next up are Brazil ($102.7 million, or 3.8 percent of the budget), Saudi Arabia ($30.8 million, 1.14 percent) and Argentina ($23.9...

Trump administration’s decision to withdraw the United States from this charade sends a signal that the United States, the UN’s largest funder, will no longer tolerate business as usual, including double standards and hypocrisy, at the UN The United States has withdrawn from the United Nations Human Rights Council. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley announced the Trump administration’s decision at the State Department Tuesday afternoon. “We take this step because our commitment does not allow us to remain a part of a hypocritical and self-serving organization that makes a mockery of...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley will announce on Tuesday that the United Sates is pulling out of the United Nations Human Rights Council, a Trump administration source told Reuters. The United States is half-way through a three-year term on the main U.N. rights body and had long threatened to quit if it was not reformed, accusing the 47-member Geneva-based body of being anti-Israel. Reuters reported last week that activists and diplomats said talks with the United States on reforms had failed to meet Washington’s demands, suggesting that...

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley will tell the organization on Tuesday evening at a joint press conference in Washington that their nation plans to leave its main human rights body, UN officials have confirmed. The announcement would come just one day after the UNHRC condemned the Trump administration for its policy of separating children from the families at the US-Mexico border. Haley had already threatened the exit, citing concerns that the council is biased against Israel. She said that the UNHRC was a “forum for politics, hypocrisy and evasion,” that included major human...

The latest election of some of the world's worst human rights abusing countries to serve on the Council does not hold out any hope of real reform The United Nations General Assembly on Monday elected 15 member states to the UN Human Rights Council for the 2018-2020 term, including such notorious human rights abusers as Qatar, Angola, Pakistan, Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Member states considered eligible for membership on the Human Rights Council are theoretically supposed to be able to demonstrate their commitment to the highest standards of human rights and their full cooperation with all...

Jean Ziegler sits on the UN Council for Human Rights. He is a large figure on the political stage and is often drafted in to sit on a range of commissions (especially those related to food and distribution). He seems to be respected by most world leaders and has a long history of working with International rights groups. But this man has a checkered history that should concern those that believe in free nations and even more so, those that are concerned that the UN is being driven by an agenda that is unfriendly to modern democracy.

Obama admin. engaged in "diplomatic malpractice," specifically at the Human Rights Council, more generally at the United Nations as a whole, by indulging their hatefests. Hopefully, President Trump will succeed in reversing this destructive course The Trump administration decided to boycott the United Nations Human Rights Council’s special session bashing Israel this week. The Council is devoting time, during its regular annual month-long meeting in March, to take up ‘Agenda Item 7’ dealing with the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.” Israel is the only country in the world that is targeted under such a special...

In a move that some warn could set a dangerous precedent for the U.N.’s Human Rights Council, a group of countries will try to use a vote in New York Tuesday to reverse an earlier decision, which they were unable to defeat at the Geneva-based HRC. The issue at stake: a council decision last June to create the U.N.’s first independent expert focused on “violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.” A group led by African and Islamic states tried to prevent that from happening, and the vote result illustrated how divisive the issue is — the...

The U.N.’s top human rights body has decided to appoint an expert to monitor violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In a narrow 23-18 vote with six abstentions, the Human Rights Council called for the creation of a three-year position for an independent expert to look into wrongdoing against gays, lesbians and transgender people. The expert is expected to be appointed at the next meeting of the 47-member, Geneva-based body in September. …

A growing number of migrants worldwide are fleeing "sickening atrocities" and often encounter cruelty and xenophobia instead of compassion, the UN's rights chief said Monday. "Conflicts in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere have unleashed a toxic brew of malevolent forces, including the commission of sickening atrocities, and the emergence of human trafficking gangs," Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said. "These are the circumstances that migrants are increasingly fleeing. The trauma they have suffered is appalling, (and) they deserve the international community's sympathy and compassion," he told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council's main annual session in Geneva. Instead, they were...

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has "congratulated" Venezuela on winning a new three-year term on the U.N. Human Rights Council, the socialist government reported Wednesday. Venezuela's mission to the U.N. said Ban offered his congratulations during a meeting Tuesday with Venezuelan ambassador to the HRC Jorge Valero in Geneva, the Swiss city that is home to the U.N.'s top human rights body. Ban's reported congratulations came despite the fact that the ongoing election onto the HRC of countries with poor human rights records has long outraged human rights advocates and frustrated democratic governments. ...