5718

CONSEIL DES DROITS DE L'HOMME

LA LIBYE ÉLUE SANS DIFFICULTÉ

13 mai 2010
http://www.radio-canada.ca/nouvelles/International/2010/05/13/007-conseil-droits-homme-libye.shtml

L'ONU a accordé à la Libye, jeudi, l'un des 14 sièges à pourvoir au sein du Conseil des droits de l'homme, une décision vivement critiquée par les organisations non gouvernementales.

Lors d'un vote secret, le pays dirigé par le colonel Mouammar Kadhafi a obtenu l'appui de 155 des 192 États membres de l'ONU, largement plus que la majorité absolue nécessaire (97) pour être élu. Les résultats ont été annoncés par le président de l'Assemblée générale, le Libyen Ali Triki.

LES AUTRES PAYS NOUVELLEMENT ÉLUS AU SEIN DU CONSEIL DES DROITS DE L'HOMME

L'Angola, la Mauritanie, l'Ouganda, les Maldives, la Malaisie, le Qatar, la Moldavie, la Pologne, l'Équateur, le Guatemala, l'Espagne, la Suisse et la Thaïlande.

L'Assemblée générale des Nations unies a ainsi fait fi de l'appel lancé un peu plus tôt par un groupe de 37 organisations de défense des droits de l'homme, qui jugent le pays indigne de siéger au principal organe de l'ONU.

Si ces ONG dénoncent le bilan en matière de droits de la personne de pays comme l'Angola, la Libye, la Malaisie, l'Ouganda et la Thaïlande, elles ont cependant concentré leurs attaques sur la Libye.

La Libye est « une des sociétés les plus répressives au monde » et « la liberté d'expression, les partis politiques et les médias libres [y] sont interdits », avaient-elles argué, ajoutant que le régime libyen est « une des tyrannies les plus brutales et les plus anciennes ».

«La place du colonel Kadhafi est en prison, pas au sein du plus important organe de l'ONU en matière de droits de la personne.»

Plaidoyer des ONG

Les ONG ont également critiqué le fait que, pour la première fois, chaque groupe régional de l'ONU a présenté un nombre de candidats égal à celui des sièges à pourvoir, assurant ainsi leur élection sans contestation.

« Des élections sans compétition n'ont aucun sens »,

avaient-elles affirmé. Une directrice de l'organisme Human Rights Watch, Pegy Hicks, a déclaré que

« les élections du conseil se transforment en processus joué d'avance qui ôte leur sens aux critères d'adhésion établis par l'Assemblée générale ».

L'Iran avait également posé sa candidature avant de la retirer, il y a un mois,

en échange d'un siège à la commission de l'ONU sur le statut des femmes.

LE CONSEIL DES DROITS DE L'HOMME EN BREF

Le Conseil, qui siège à Genève, compte 47 États membres, élus pour trois ans. Sa composition est renouvelable au tiers chaque année.

Cet organe de l'ONU a été créé en 2006 afin de remplacer la Commission des droits de l'homme, discréditée par le bilan peu reluisant de certains pays qui y siégeaient.

Or, le Conseil est régulièrement accusé d'inaction dans les dossiers de pays connus pour leurs violations des droits de la personne.

Radio-Canada.ca avec Agence France Presse et Reuters

Hyperlien externe

Conseil des droits de l'homme

Site officiel. http://www2.ohchr.org/french/bodies/hrcouncil/

26 comemntaires

*

LE CONSEIL DES DROITS DE L'HOMME

http://www2.ohchr.org/french/bodies/hrcouncil/

Le Conseil des droits de l'homme est un organe intergouvernemental du système des Nations Unies, composé de 47 états qui ont la responsabilité de renforcer la promotion et la protection des droits de l'homme autour du globe.

Le Conseil a été créé par l'Assemblée générale de l'ONU, le 15 mars 2006, avec le but principal d'aborder des situations de violations de droits de l'homme et d'émettre des recommandations à leur encontre.

Un an après avoir tenu sa première réunion, le 18 juin 2007, le Conseil a adopté sa mise en place des institutions , lui fournissant les éléments pour le guider dans ses futurs travaux.

Parmi ces éléments, on trouve le nouveau mécanisme d' examen périodique universel qui permettra d'évaluer les situations de droits de l'homme dans chacun des 192 Etats membres de l'ONU.

D'autres dispositifs incluent un nouveau Comité consultatif qui sert de « groupe de réflexion » au Conseil, lui fournissant expertise et conseil sur des questions thématiques des droits de l'homme, ainsi que le mécanisme révisé de procédé de plaintes , qui permet à des individus et à des organismes de porter à connaissance du Conseil des plaintes de violations de droits de l'homme.

Le Conseil de droits de l'homme continue également à travailler étroitement avec les procédures spéciales de l'ONU, établies par l'ancienne Commission des droits de l'homme et assumées par le Conseil.

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrc/docs/ngos/HRS_LibyaAJ.pdf

*

U.N. ELECTS IRAN TO COMMISSION ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Joseph Abrams

April 29, 2010
FOXNews.com
NEW YORK
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/04/29/elects-iran-commission-womens-rights/

(En français) http://sisyphe.org/spip.php?article3591

(En hystérie) http://www.postedeveille.ca/2010/04/onu-liran-%C3%A9lu-membre-de-la-commission-de-la-condition-de-la-femme.html

http://www.agoravox.fr/actualites/international/article/l-iran-pays-feminophobe-elu-a-la-74677

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council,

it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women,

which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women,"

according to its website.

Buried 2,000 words deep in a U.N. press release

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ecosoc6419.doc.htm

distributed Wednesday on the filling of "vacancies in subsidiary bodies," was the stark announcement:

Iran, along with representatives from 10 other nations, was "elected by acclamation,"

meaning that no open vote was requested or required by any member states —

including the United States.

FOXNews.com learned of the press release only after being alerted to it by Anne Bayefsky director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust.

http://www.touro.edu/ihrh/about_us.asp

The U.S. currently holds one of the 45 seats on the body, a position set to expire in 2012.

The U.S. Mission to the U.N. did not return requests for comment on whether it actively opposed elevating Iran to the women's commission.

Iran's election comes just a week after one of its senior clerics declared that women who wear revealing clothing are to blame for earthquakes,

a statement that created an international uproar — but little affected their bid to become an international arbiter of women's rights.

"Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,"

said the respected cleric, Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi.

As word of Iran's intention to join the women's commission came out, a group of Iranian activists circulated a petition to the U.N. asking that member states oppose its election.

"Iran's discriminatory laws demonstrate that the Islamic Republic does not believe in gender equality,"

reads the letter, signed by 214 activists and endorsed by over a dozen human rights bodies.

The letter draws a dark picture of the status of women in Iran:

"women lack the ability to choose their husbands, have no independent right to education after marriage, no right to divorce, no right to child custody, have no protection from violent treatment in public spaces, are restricted by quotas for women's admission at universities, and are arrested, beaten, and imprisoned for peacefully seeking change of such laws."

The Commission on the Status of Women is supposed to conduct review of nations that violate women's rights, issue reports detailing their failings, and monitor their success in improving women's equality.

Yet critics of Iran's human rights record say the country has taken "every conceivable step" to deter women's equality.

"In the past year, it has arrested and jailed mothers of peaceful civil rights protesters,"

wrote three prominent democracy and human rights activists in an op-ed published online Tuesday by Foreign Policy Magazine.

http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/27/iran_gender_discrimination_and_the_uns_womens_commission
"It has charged women who were seeking equality in the social sphere — as wives, daughters and mothers — with threatening national security, subjecting many to hours of harrowing interrogation. Its prison guards have beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and raped female and male civil rights protesters."

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/04/29/anne-bayefsky-iran-united-nations-commission-status-women-congress/

Iran's elevation to the commission comes as a black eye just days after the U.S. helped lead a successful effort to keep Iran off the Human Rights Council, which is already dominated by nations that are judged by human rights advocates as chronic violators of essential freedoms. The current membership of the women's commission is little different.

Though it touts itself as "the principal global policy-making body" on women's rights, the makeup of the commission is mostly determined by geography and its membership is a hodge-podge of some human rights advocates (including the U.S., Japan, and Germany) and other nations with stark histories of rights violations.

The number of seats on the commission is based on the number of countries in a region, no matter how small their populations or how scant their respect for rights.

The commission is currently made up of 13 members from Africa, 11 from Asia, nine from Latin America and the Caribbean, eight from Western Europe and North America, and four from Eastern Europe.

During this round of "elections," which were not competitive and in which no real votes were cast, two seats opened up for the Asian bloc for the 2011-2015 period.

Only two nations put forward candidates to fill empty spots — Iran and Thailand.

As at most such commissions in the U.N., backroom deals determined who would gain new seats at the women's rights body.

The activists' letter sent to the U.N. Tuesday argued that it would be better if the Asian countries proffered only one candidate, instead of elevating Iran to the commission.

"We, a group of gender-equality activists, believe that for the sake of women's rights globally, an empty seat for the Asia group on (the commission) is much preferable to Iran's membership. We are writing to alert you to the highly negative ramifications of Iran’s membership in this international body."

A spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which oversees the commission, did not return phone calls or e-mails seeking comment.

When its term begins in 2011, Iran will be joined by 10 other countries: Belgium, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Estonia, Georgia, Jamaica, Iran, Liberia, the Netherlands, Spain, Thailand and Zimbabwe.

*

ONU

UN
United Nations

Economic and Social Council

2010 Organizational Session

8th & 9th Meetings

28 avril 2010
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ecosoc6419.doc.htm

(...)

The Council elected 11 new members to fill an equal number of vacancies on the Commission on the Status of Women for four-year terms beginning at the first meeting of the Commission’s fifty-sixth session in 2011 and expiring at the close of its fifty-ninth session in 2015.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia and Zimbabwe were elected from the Group of African States; Iran and Thailand were elected from the Group of Asian States; Estonia and Georgia were elected from the Group of Eastern European States; Jamaica was elected from the Group of Latin American and Caribbean States; and Belgium, Netherlands and Spain were elected from the Group of Western European and Other States.

(...)

To fill vacancies on the Commission on Science and Technology for Development, the Council elected 16 new members to four-year terms beginning 1 January 2011: Lesotho, Mauritius, Rwanda, Togo, Tunisia and United Republic of Tanzania from the African States; China, India, Iran and Philippines from the Asian States; Latvia from the Eastern European States; Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Peru from the Latin American and Caribbean States; and the United States from the Western European and Other States group. The Council postponed the election of one member from Asian States, two members from Eastern European States and four members from Western European and Other States.

(...)

To membership in the Governing Council of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), the Council elected the following 15 countries: Algeria, Central African Republic, Gabon, Mali, Mozambique and Nigeria from the African States group; Indonesia, Iran, Japan and Pakistan from the Asian States group; Albania and Russian Federation from the Eastern European States group; Argentina and Venezuela from the Latin American and Caribbean States group; and United States from the Western European and Other States group.

(...)

the Council elected Benin, Djibouti, Slovakia and Belarus as members of the Executive Board of the International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women