NGOs urge US to hold strong on UN text slamming Syria

NGOs urge US to hold strong on UN text slamming Syria

For Immediate Release

Geneva, April 29, 2011 — UN Watch, the Geneva-based rights group that heads an international coalition opposing Syria's candidacy for the UN Human Rights Council, strongly praised today's revised American draft resolution (April 29) with a new first paragraph that "unequivocally condemns the use of lethal violence against peaceful protestors by the Syrian authorities" -- thereby restoring, as UN Watch requested yesterday, the direct attribution of responsibility to the Assad government that had been removed in yesterday's US draft.

On behalf of the coalition of 24 human rights groups, MPs and dissidents, UN Watch congratulated the USA, France, UK, Belgium, Japan and Norway for speaking out in today's session against Syria's UNHRC candidacy, but urged the council itself, in today's outcome resolution, to reject Syria's candidacy, prior to the May 20 vote at the UN General Assembly in New York.

• Click here for April 27 US draft (condemning violations "by the Syrian government" in Op. Par. 1; and in Op. Par. 7 declaring that "recent human rights violations committed in the Syrian Arab Republic must be considered when they seek membership in the Human Rights Council")
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• Click here for revised April 28 US draft (removing above language)
"Earlier action might have prevented the current month-long massacre, but It's better late than never for the 47-nation body to begin addressing the long-suffering victims of state-sponsored brutality in Syria," said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

"We urge the US to hold strong and not compromise the current text by dropping, as some states reportedly requested, the creation of an inquiry nor the remaining oblique reference in the preamble to HRC election criteria."

"If the current draft survives as is -- and the US overcomes the sharp resistance of the Islamic group, China, Russia, Cuba, and other Syrian allies -- the outcome will be an extraordinary and welcome exception to the council norm. As a rule, the council, which is dominated by non-democracies like Saudi Arabia, China, and Cuba -- and which elected Libya last year -- has turned a blind eye to regimes shooting their own people, as happened in 2009 when it disregarded massacres by Iran and China, and praised Sri Lanka right after it killed 20,000 civilians."

See UN Watch live updates on Twitter at www.twitter.com/unwatch.

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