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An update on this story from JBlog Central (thanks to Morgaan Sinclair):
In an unprecedented reversal, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour has backed off from her earlier endorsement of an Arab text calling for the “elimination” of Zionism, in response to a UN Watch protest. News of the controversy was covered internationally, sparking a series of Canadian newspaper editorials critical of Ms. Arbour’s initial statement and her overall handling of the affair. Following is a timeline of the events as they unfolded around the globe.Jan. 24, 2008, Geneva: High Commissioner Arbour issues an official statement: “I welcome the 7th ratification required to bring the Arab Charter on Human Rights into force... the Arab Charter on Human Rights is an important step forward [to] help strengthen the enjoyment of human rights.” At U.N. headquarters in New York, Marie Okabe, spokesperson for Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, highlights Arbour’s statement. When asked, she does not have the text of the charter.
[...]
Jan. 29, 2008, World: UN Watch’s exposé of the Arab Charter is published around the world, including in Canada’s National Post, Switzerland’s Le Temps, the Jerusalem Post, the Montreal Gazette, and Argentina's Agencia de Noticias Judia.
Jan. 30, 2008, Geneva & New York: Arbour changes course. Now she asserts that various Arab Charter provisions are “incompatible” with international norms. The UN headquarters in New York issues a new release, entitled “Arab rights charter deviates from international standard.”
Arbour’s new statement:
“Throughout the development of the Arab Charter, my office shared concerns with the drafters about the incompatibility of some of its provisions with international norms and standards. These concerns included the approach to death penalty for children and the rights of women and non-citizens.”
“Moreover, to the extent that it equates Zionism with racism, we reiterated that the Arab Charter is not in conformity with General Assembly Resolution 46/86, which rejects that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination. OHCHR [the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights] does not endorse these inconsistencies.”
Posted by Robert at February 7, 2008 2:59 PM
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What was she thinking when she originally endorsed it? Had she even read it? If her latest assertion that she'd taken issue with earlier drafts is true, why is she now acting as if these contentious articles are a complete surprise to her?
Is it just my imagination, or does coming into contact with UN High Mucky mucks corrode one's mind?
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at February 7, 2008 3:33 PM
Remove the petition to remove the illustrations of Muhammad from Wikipedia
petition overview | letter
Target:
To request wikipedia editors to respect other peoples freedom of speech
Sponsored by:
Free People in a Free World
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/2/removal-of-the-pics-of-muhammad-from-wikipedia
This is to protect anyones right to view images or any entity without influence or threats from religion or government. If said religion or government does not like the content, it is free to not view or to punish it's followers to do the same.
http://illustratedpig.blogspot.com/2008/02/sign-up.html
Posted by: shiva at February 7, 2008 3:56 PM
NOW HERE IS THE REAL LINK
Posted by: shiva at February 7, 2008 4:03 PM
"What was she thinking when she originally endorsed it?" posted by DaninVan
That's the problem, she is a lefty liberal who cannot think beyond tomorrow noon.
Posted by: Sounder at February 7, 2008 6:08 PM
Louise Arbour is not, I assume, an idiot. She is therefore quite capable of taking the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, and the "Muslim" version that was crafted so that Muslims could pretend to be signing simply a slightly-different version -- hoping that no one would bother too much about those little differences -- that is, the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights, and going through them, comparing them, provision by provision.
And once she has done that, she might wish to read a bit about Islam. She might wish to read, and re-read, the Qur'an, and hundreds of the Hadith collected in al-Bukhari and Muslim, and judged to be the most "authentic," and then she might wish to read the biographies of Muhammad, the man who is the Model of Conduct, uswa hasana, the Perfect Man, al-insan al-kamil.
After all, last I looked, and last Louise Arbour looked, Islam was in the news. And I suspect it will continue to be in the news, for some time, for all time, to come.
Doesn't Louise Arbour have a responsibility to properly inform herself? And might she not wish to glance, just glance at,such books as "The Dhimmi" and "Islam and Dhimmitude" (both by Bat Ye'or), and "The Myth of Islamic Tolerance" (ed. Robert Spencer) and another half-dozen books.
No time? Too busy?
Is there anything that could conceivably be more important to the future of the West, to its art and science and human freedoms, and to the continued existence of solicitude for individual rights -- the very thing that Louise Arbour is supposed to care most about -- than in learning, and not from apologists, about Islam?
She should consider such self-education part of her job -- now the most indispensable part of her job.
And while she is at it, she just might find time to meet with, inter alios, Ibn Warraq and Wafa Sultan and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Ali Sina, and a dozen or several dozen others, met quietly, without publicity, in order to find out what they, who were born into and raised within Islam, might possibly have to explain to her, or inform her about, and she, in turn, can then make of what they tell her.
She owes this to those who wrote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to those who wrote the Declaration of the Rights of Man, to those who wrote the American Bill of Rights.
Posted by: Hugh at February 7, 2008 6:48 PM
Hugh, my view in such situations is that this or that high-positioned dhimmy is not at all an idiot, but is bought and paid for -- I am sure she read and compared the provisions, and if she hasn't read up on Islam (other than the apologetics, to get her own lingo right) it would be only because she does not think it can contribute to her getting paid. On the other hand, she may have read them, and knows that their message is in direct conflict with her getting paid.
Too bad for her that the pesky UN Watch ruins her day sometimes. I am sure the UN Arab caucus is not too pleased either.
at February 7, 2008 7:26 PM
Nobody is that stupid.
Arbour-stupid seems to be the same kind of stupid that one can find in Condi Rice & GWB.
Its a deliberant form of ignorant stupid paired with Jew hatred and refusal to learn. But Hugh above explains all that far better than I can. Arbour does a lot of damage.
She shouldn't be in that job. She should be out to pasture...
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at February 7, 2008 7:32 PM
Nobody is that stupid.
Arbour-stupid seems to be the same kind of stupid that one can find in Condi Rice & GWB.
Its a deliberant form of ignorant stupid paired with Jew hatred and refusal to learn. But Hugh above explains all that far better than I can. Arbour does a lot of damage.
She shouldn't be in that job. She should be out to pasture...
Posted by: sheik yer'mami at February 7, 2008 7:33 PM
The most alarming of all this is, a group had to organize and protest, vigorously, her nod to a resolution promoting jihad and mass genocide.
Hugh, you were generous. She looks like an 'idiot'.
Posted by: Sounder at February 7, 2008 7:50 PM
"generous..."
Yes. I'm always much too kind. It's a character fault. I keep working to correct it, but nothing seems to help.
Posted by: Hugh at February 7, 2008 8:44 PM
"Arab Charter on Human Rights" is a travesty of human rights charters that apply to all humans, not only to Moslems or Moslem Arabs.
Why do Arabs need a separate human rights charter? Do they not consider themselves as part of humanity? Or is it that they feel superior and apart from all non-Moslem humans?
The ideology called Islam is one of intolerance, hatred for non-Moslems, and fit only for the trash-heap of history.
Any idiot in office that does not bother reading what he/she endorses is not fit to occupy that office. Occupying UN offices are too many that fit that designation.
Posted by: unicorns62000 at February 8, 2008 4:29 AM
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