Groups Urge UNESCO To Cancel Election Of Syria

55 MPs, Rights Groups & Dissidents Urge UNESCO To
Cancel Election Of Syria To Human Rights Committees

Appeal Sent To Washington, Paris & London

UNESCO board includes US, UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark

Contact: media1@unwatch.org

GENEVA, Dec. 15 – An international coalition of 55 members of parliament, pro-democracy dissidents, human rights NGOs and religious groups launched a campaign today calling on UNESCO to reverse its recent election of Syria to two committees dealing with human rights. The appeal (see below for full text & signatories) was sent today to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe and UK Foreign Minister William Hague.

"It is shocking that the UN's leading agency on science, culture and education voted unanimously to give two position of global influence on human rights to a regime that has been raping, torturing and killing its own men, women and children," said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, an independent human rights monitoring group based in Geneva, which spearheaded the initiative.

"This was an unconscionable decision that must be reversed immediately, and UNESCO should apologize for it."

Signatories to today's appeal include members of the Australian, British, Canadian, Italian and Norwegian parliaments, as well as two members of the European Parliament.

"UNESCO's 58-member executive board, which includes the US, France, Britain, Spain, Austria, Belgium, Italy and Denmark, should never have ratified the Arab League's nomination of Syria last month. When a regime is murdering, torturing and raping its own men, women and children."

Links:
* UNESCO list showing Syria on the two committees
* Membership of 58-member UNESCO executive board which elected Syria
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Appeal for UNESCO to Cancel Its
Election of Syria to Human Rights Committees

Shocked that the UNESCO Executive Board, on 11 November 2011, elected the Syrian Arab Republic to two committees dealing with human rights—the Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, which examines communications relating to the exercise of human rights, and the Committee on International Non-Governmental Organizations, which is charged with overseeing the work of civil society and human rights groups within UNESCO;

Having considered the recent findings of United Nations Human Rights Council investigators that the Syrian regime has in the past year committed crimes against humanity, including the murder of 5,000 of its citizens, the torturing of children and rape;

Recalling that earlier this year, after United Nations Watch revealed that Syria had cynically submitted its candidacy for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, a global protest campaign emerged with the support of Human Rights Watch, the Syrian Human Rights Committee, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, and numerous other NGOs and UN stakeholders, helping to successfully defeat the candidacy of the Assad regime;

Guided by the principled opposition expressed by the UNESCO Director-General herself, Ms. Irina Bokova, who has stated that she “does not see how the Syria can contribute to the work of the committees”;

Declaring that each day that the Syria continues to sit on the aforementioned UNESCO human rights committees constitutes an affront to the memory of the innocents who continue to be killed by the Assad regime, and casts a shadow upon the reputation of UNESCO, and of the United Nations system as a whole;

We, the undersigned Members of Parliament, human rights organizations, civil society representatives and pro-democracy dissidents and activists, do hereby appeal to the UNESCO Executive Board to urgently remove the Syrian regime from the aforementioned human rights committees, and to publicly apologize to the victims of the Syrian regime for having elected it in the first place.

Angie Bray, Member of British Parliament

Frieda Brepoels, Belgian Member of European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Human Rights

Irwin Cotler, Member of Canadian Parliament, Liberal Critic for Human Rights, Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on International Human Rights

Michael Danby, Member of Australian Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs

Ana Gomes, Potuguese Member of European Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs, Committee on Human Rights

Matteo Mecacci, Member of Italian Parliament, Chairman of Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions of OSCE Parliamentary Assembly

Karin S. Woldseth, Member of Norwegian Parliament, Committee on Foreign Affairs

Hillel Neuer, Executive Director, UN Watch, Switzerland

Rami Nakhle, Syrian National Council

Lama Atassi, Syrian democracy activist

Ismael Hachem, President, France Syrie Démocratie

Ahed Al Hendi, Syrian dissident, Cyberdissidents.org

Yang Jianli, Former prisoner of conscience and survivor of Tiananmen Square massacre, President, Initiatives for China
Dr. Osama Kadi, President, Syrian Centre for Political and Strategic Studies
Robert R. LaGamma, President, Council of the Committee of Democracies

Amina Bouayach, President, Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humains, Morocco

Yang Kuanxing, Chinese writer, original signatory to Charter '08 manifesto calling for political reform in China, Editor of China E-Weekly

Abdinoor Farey, Executive Director, Somali Youth for Peace and Development, Somalia

Bhawani Shanker Kusum, Executive Director, Gram Bharati Samiti, India

Dr. Harris O. Schoenberg, President, UN Reform Advocates, USA

Okay Machisa, National Director, Zimbabwe Human Rights Association, Zimbabwe

Phil ya Nangoloh, Executive Director, NamRights, Namibia

Nguyên Lê Nhân Quyên, Delegate, Vietnamese League for Human Rights, Switzerland

Catherine Legna, Secrétaire général, Comité international des Juristes pour la défense des victimes de la répression du soulèvement en Iran, France

Peter Hesse, Director, Peter Hesse Foundation, Germany

Francois Ullmann, President, Ingénieurs du Monde, France

John Suarez, International Secretary, Directorio Democratico Cubano

Sylvia G. Iriondo, President, Mothers and Women against Repression / MAR por Cuba

Don Kraus, Chief Executive Officer, Citizens for Global Solutions, USA

Dr Richard Lawson, Founder, Campaign for Global Human Rights Index, UK

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, President, Stop Child Executions, Canada

Hu Ping, Editor in Chief, Beijing Spring

Wang Longmeng, President, Chinese-Tibetan Association France

Christina Fu, President, New Hope Foundation, USA

Duy Hoang, Spokesman, Viet Tan, Vietnam

Jacky Mamou, President, Collectif Urgence Darfour, France

Panayote Dimitras, Spokesperson, Greek Helsinki Monitor, Greece

Dr. Theodor Rathgeber, Forum Human Rights, Germany

Dickson Mugendi David Ntwiga, Executive Director, Solidarity House International, Kenya

Gibreil Hamid , Darfur Peace and Development Centre, President, Switzerland

Alain Jakubowicz, President, Ligue Internationale Contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme, France

Sr Catherine Waters, OP, Main Representative to UN, Catholic International Education Office, USA

Simone Abel, Director, René Cassin, United Kingdom

Jean Stoner, SNDdeN, NGO Representative at the United Nations, Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, USA

Dr Charles Mwape, President, Christian Coalition, Zambia
David French, former Chief Executive Officer (2003-2009), of Westminster Foundation for Democracy, an agency of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Virginia Swain, Director and CoFounder, Center for Global Community and World Law, USA

Orrvar Dalby, Director International Program Department, Norwegian People’s Aid, Norway

Nirvana González Rosa, General Coordinator, Latin American and Caribbean Women's Health Network, Chile

Angelamaria Loreto, President, IUS PRIMI VIRI International Association, Italy

Galina Nechitailo, Vice President, Environmental Women’s Assembly, Russia

Ali Egal, Chairman, Fanole Human rights & Development Organization, Somalia/Kenya

Léonie de Picciotto, Representative to the UN Geneva, International Council of Jewish Women, Switzerland

Kyung B. Lee, President, The Council for Human Rights in North Korea, Canada

www.unwatch.org

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).

ENDS

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