UN Human Rights Council ends its 16th session with usual self-laudatory praise

UN Human Rights Council ends its 16th session with usual self-laudatory praise / “Cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights.” / Appeal to Pope for removal of infamous blood-libel plaque from Damascus Church

Comments by David G. Littman, representative for the World Union for Progressive Judaism at the United Nations in Geneva and statements at the 16 Session of the Council on Human Rights:

This is the final follow-up to my two earlier pieces here and here.

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The 16th session of the Human Rights Council ended on March 25 with 5 egregious anti-Israeli Resolutions–all sponsored by Pakistan’s delegate, ironically speaking on behalf of the OIC. Only the USA had the temerity to vote against all, providing sound arguments in each case. Israel’s ambassador Aharon Leshno-Yaar spoke only once in a moving brief statement in regard to the recent terrorist atrocities in Israel, condemning the Council’s bias and comparing it to the infamous Commission. Some EU countries abstained on some resolutions and two voted with the USA against one. To give an idea of some of the ongoing absurdities, Egypt’s ambassador, speaking for the 118 members and 18 observers of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), sponsored the resolution on ‘Enhancement of international cooperation in the field of human rights’ and another resolution on the ‘Right to Development’. Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Cuba (often) provided ludicrous ‘comments’ now and again, and other rogue states too.

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I was driven to the Palais des Nations on March 22 by an NGO friend and delivered two key statements, although with a rather hoarse voice. The UN Webcast link allows readers to see – and the verbatim text below gives the text as pronounced (same with our 2nd oral statement).

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WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM
UN Human Rights Council – 16th Session (28 February-25 March)
Statement by David G. Littman 22 March (10:30am)
Follow-up and implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action:
Integrating the human rights of women throughout the United Nations system (item 8)

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Violence against women & related taboo subjects at the Human Rights Council & elsewhere

Madam, it is nearly 3 years since an ‘Affair’ [the ‘Sharia-gate Shipwreck’] occurred at the Council on this very item, concerning our joint statement on a follow-up to the DPA regarding ‘violence against women’ (here) (1).

We were immediately stopped on a ‘point of order’ by a Member State delegate [Egypt] who later declared [on a ‘point of order’ – followed by two dozen more and a 40 minute recess] that “Islam will not be crucified at this Council.” (2) We had simply condemned FGM – the barbaric female genital mutilation of up to three million young girls every year in 32 countries, 29 of which are members of the OIC (3); the stoning of women; honour killing and the marriage-sale of 9 year-old-girls – all carried out in the name either of ‘traditional practices’ or ‘cultural relativism’, but with irrefutable religious connections.

We shall again quote from two experts on this crucial phenomenon, which is more and more on the rise. In 2003, Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy, stressing the integrity of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenants, provided an analysis of cultural relativism in her Final Report to the Commission on Violence against Women. She wrote: “The greatest challenge to women's rights and the elimination of discriminatory laws and harmful practices comes from the doctrine of cultural relativism.” (4)

In 2008, in a 60th anniversary UDHR lecture here in Geneva, Noble Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi declared: “The idea of cultural relativism is nothing but an excuse to violate human rights.” She also condemned the fact that, in her native country [Iran], a girl is considered an adult and liable to punishment, even execution, at 9 and a boy at 15.

Such crimes, carried out traditionally, but also with official religious backing should not be treated as taboo subjects at the Council, because of fear of religious sensitivities. The growing phenomenon of ‘cultural relativism’ should not be supported by self-censorship at the UN and especially not under the guise of ‘complementary standards’. It is time for more and more States and NGOs to speak out against all the roots of such barbaric practices against women. We appeal to both the Council and the High Commissioner for Human Rights to reconsider this matter and end any complicit silence. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Notes:
1) 8th Session, 16 June 2008. DGL speaking jointly for the AWE & the IHEU. See here.

2) 1st ‘point of order’ by Egyptian delegate Amr Roshdy Hassan after 22 seconds; he made six others and 20 more followed, including a 40 minute and a 2nd 5 minute recess for the president to discuss with the OIC. The President then informed the speaker that the word ‘sharia’ could not be pronounced at the Council.

3) See E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/NGO/27: Background on “Traditional or Customary Practices” /Female Genital Mutilation and the Arabic text (and translations), certified by Al-Azhar University, authoritative source for Shafi’i school of Sunni law widely adhered to in Egypt.

4) 9th & Final Report: E/CN.4/2003/75, section VII: Religious Extremism & Harmful Traditional Practices. §61 /§62. Ms Radhika Coomaraswamy is the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on children & armed conflict.

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UN webcast HERE for 2nd oral statement delivered at afternoon session (March 22) – text below

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WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM
UN Human Rights Council – 16th Session (28 February-25 March)
Statement by David G. Littman 22 March (16:15am)
Racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance... (item 9)

1840 Ritual Blood-Libel Accusation against Judaism & Jews / Appeal to remove Father Thomas Damascus Church plaque

Sir, probably the most egregious example of religious racism and defamation has been the medieval “Blood-Libel”, the Christian accusation that Jews use human blood for unleavened bread at Passover. This libel, which targeted European Jews for centuries, was revived from 1840 in Damascus, Eastern Europe and Russia, in the Middle East by Christian communities, by the Nazis from the 1920s, and in the Arab-Muslim world for the last century.

Twenty years ago [8 February 1991], a crude revival of the “Damascus Affair Blood-Libel” was launched at the Commission when we gave a quote from the preface to Syrian Defence Minister [Major-Gen.] Mustafa Tlass’ book, The Matzah of Zion: “The Jew can kill you...and take your blood in order to make his Zionist bread...I hope that I have done my duty in presenting the practices of the enemy of our historic nation. Allah aid this project.” Exercising her right of reply, the Syrian delegate Nabila Chaalan, while waving her Minister’s book, launched “an appeal to all members of this Commission to read this very important work that demonstrates unequivocally the historical reality of Zionist racism.”

Bookstores in Damascus and especially outside tourist hotels are filled with many language copies of The Matzah of Zion, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion and Hitler’s Mein Kampf – and similar Jew-hatred books are found in most Arab-Muslim countries, even at last month’s Siel Book Fare in Casablanca.

[The latest book is by Prof. Shams al-Din al-Ajlani, The Jews of Damascus (Librairie El-Ulbi, Damas, Arabic, 2009, pp. 430), in which he gives his version of how the Jews of Damascus savagely strangled Father Thomas (and his Muslim valet in 1840) to use his blood in the preparation of their unleavened bread for the Feast of Passover.]

[A comprehensive academic research on “The Damascus Affair” was published by the late Prof. Jonathan Frankel, The Damascus Affair: “Ritual Murder”, Politics and the Jews in 1840, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 491].

[Last month’s SIEL Book Fair in Casablanca (11-20 Feb. 2011], the most important in the Middle East & North Africa, had 6 other Judeophobic hate books on display; it was denounced by the Simon Wiesenthal Center (3 March).]

We hope that the resolution before the Council combating incitement to religious hatred and violence will be adopted, and that all the member states of the OIC will carefully consider the implications of this resolution for their own societies.

Finally, the 1840 epitaph to Father Thomas – replaced since 1866 in the Terra Sancta Church of Damascus – perpetuates the 1840 blood libel. May we, sir, through the good offices of the distinguished representative of the Holy See, ask Pope Benedict XVI – following his historic condemnation earlier this month of the accusation of ‘deicide’ against Jews – to now order the removal of this infamous plaque.

[Pope Paul VI de-beatified Simon of Trent in 1965, 490 years after a similar ‘Ritual Murder’ accusation, with dire consequences for Jews in Italy for nearly 5 centuries.] (3)

Sir Moses Montefiore made an Appeal to the Pope in 1840; may our Appeal 171 years later be heard, for: Magna est veritas et praevalebit / Truth is great and will ultimately prevail.

Notes:

1. See letter of Syria’s main representative of 19 Feb. 1991: E/CN.4/1991/80. At the 47th session of the Commission (1991), 29 States (14 Member and 15 Observer States) sent letters of protest to UN Chairman Enrique Bernales Ballesteros and to UN Under-Secretary-General Jan Martenson, in this order: Israel, USA, Australia, Canada, 12 Members EU, Switzerland, the 5 members of the Nordic countries, Austria, New Zealand, Japan, Czechoslavakia, Hungary & Poland (jointly); Yugoslavia. The WUPJ delivered a 14 Feb. 1991 letter to Jan Martenson and Enrique Bernales Ballesteros giving full details and signed by 7 NGOS – 4 other NGOs sent separate letters. For a full documentation see, Human Rights &Human Wrongs, N° 10& N° 11 (World Union for Progressive Judaism, Geneva, 10 June 1991 and 20 Jan. 1992) – in many libraries worldwide, including the UN in New York and Geneva. See WUPJ’s written statement: E/CN.4/1991/NGO/49 of 8 March 1991, which contains passages from the 6 Nov. 1840 firman of Sultan Abdul Mejid: “Ignorant people believe that the Jews are in the habit of making human sacrifices in order to use the blood in the (Passover) wafers....” We have more detailed documentation for delegates on this defamation of Judaism and all Jews.

2. 15th session Council, 28 Sept. 2010, and at a HRC ‘Complementary Standards’ Council meeting on 27 October 2010.

3. “In 1475 the fanatical Franciscan Bernardino da Feltre preached there [in Trent] against the Jews in his Lenten sermons, and foretold that their sins would soon be manifested to all.” (Encyclopaedia Judaica, 1971, vol. 15, p. 1374).