Human Rights

Geneva/New York, February 27 – The Russian war in Ukraine has “triggered the most massive violations of human rights we are living today,” U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Human Rights Council days after a leading U.N. body voted to demand an end to the war.

Guterres said evidence showed that repeated Russian missile attacks have caused “terrible suffering” to Ukrainians and destroyed cities and key infrastructure. He said cases of conflict-related sexual violence against men, women and girls have been documented in Ukraine in the last year, U.N. News reported from Geneva.

“Serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law against prisoners of war and hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions of civilians” have been uncovered in the past 12 months, Guterres told the 47-nation Human Rights Council as it began a six-week session.

Included in the session’s program of work is discussion on findings by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. The council itself had launched in March 2022 a human rights monitoring mission to gather testimonies of possible war crimes in Ukraine.

Prior to his appearance in Geneva, Guterres told the U.N. Security Council on February 24 that Russia committed a “blatant violation” of the U.N. Charter and international law, with profound impacts on the world.

The war has “unleashed widespread death, destruction and displacement. Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure have caused many casualties and terrible suffering,” Guterres said.

“Life is a living hell for the people of Ukraine,” he said, adding that an estimated 17.6 million people, or nearly 40 per cent of Ukraine’s population, require humanitarian assistance and protection and the war has erased 30 per cent of pre-war jobs. More than 8 million Ukrainians have taken refuge in neighboring countries and an estimated 5.4 million others are internally displaced.

The U.N. General Assembly on February 23 voted 141 against 7 to adopt a new resolution that calls for a “comprehensive, just and lasting peace” in Ukraine in line with the principles of the U.N. Charter. The countries that voted against: Russia, Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea, Mali, Nicaragua and Syria. A total of 32 countries abstained, including China, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Vietnam and South Africa.

Csaba Kőrösi, President of the U.N. General Assembly, also attended the Geneva meeting and issued a stark warning that Russia’s actions had “effectively paralyzed” the Security Council in New York, the primary international forum tasked with maintaining peace and security, U.N. News reported.

Korosi said scores of countries are still struggling to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and more than 70 countries are in debt distress amid a global cost of living crisis, with women and girls “systematically marginalized” in many countries. He called for a fundamental shift in the global response was needed, especially on tackling climate change, which is already an existential threat for many communities.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Guterres called for “full implementation” of the Declaration, which was adopted 75 years ago but has become widely “misused and abused.”

“The Universal Declaration sets out the rights to life, liberty and security; to equality before the law; to freedom of expression; to seek asylum; to work, to healthcare and education, and more,” he said. “But as we mark its 75th anniversary, the Universal Declaration is under assault from all sides. It is misused and abused.”

“It is exploited for political gain; and it is ignored – often by the very same people. Some governments chip away at it. Others use a wrecking ball. Today’s public disregard and private disdain for human rights are a wake-up call. This is a moment to stand on the right side of history. A moment to stand up for the human rights of everyone, everywherWe must revitalize the Universal Declaration and ensure its full implementation to face the new challenges of today and tomorrow.” (By J.Tuyet Nguyen)

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New York, October 28 – Children from low-income families have been denied entrance to certain schools and landlords have closed the doors to possible tenants who live on social benefits, a U.N. special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights told a U.N. General Assembly committee.

“People are stereotyped and discriminated against purely because they are poor. This is frankly sickening and a stain on our society,” Olivier De Schutter told the assembly’s Third Committee, which deals with human rights questions and promotes effective enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms.

“As the global rise in energy and food prices throws millions more into poverty, they must be protected not just from the horrors of poverty, but also from the humiliation and exclusion caused by the scourge of povertyism,” De Schutter said.

De Schutter asked the U.N. to ban what he called “povertyism” because “it is as pervasive, toxic and harmful as racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination and should be treated as such.”

He called on governments to urgently review their anti-discrimination laws, as well as consider “pro-poor” affirmative action, to ensure that povertyism is wiped out.   

“The dangerously misplaced belief that people living in poverty are to blame for their condition, and therefore somehow socially inferior, has a firm grip on society and will not disappear on its own,” he said. “It is high time the law intervened to ban discrimination on grounds of socio-economic status, as many countries have already done with race, sex, age or disability.”

De Schutter said “negative stereotyping” of poor people is rife in social services which tend to treat them with suspicion and disdain. As a result, funds destined to assist the poor may remain unclaimed when potential beneficiaries walk away to avoid humiliation.

“Poverty will never be eradicated while povertyism is allowed to fester, restricting access to education, housing, employment and social benefits to those who need them the most,” De Schutter said. “The world is finally waking up to the injustices of racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination, and putting laws in place to stop them from destroying people’s lives.”

The committee was discussing a new report, which finds that  “povertyism” has become firmly entrenched in public and private institutions, largely because decision-making positions tend to be held by those from higher-income backgrounds, skewing the system against people in poverty.

The report, in the form of a U.N. resolution, said in its introduction that “discrimination is part of the daily experience of people in poverty. It restricts access to employment, education, housing or social services. It may result in certain social goods or programmes not reaching people in poverty owing to discriminatory treatment by officials, employers or landlords, or to the fear of maltreatment.”

 “It discourages people who experience poverty from applying for a job, or from claiming certain benefits: it is thus a major source of non-take-up of rights.”

In the report, De Schutter identified “povertyism as negative stereotyping against the poor – as part of the experience of living on low incomes” and he “described how the realization of socioeconomic rights depends on people in poverty being protected from discrimination.”

“Stereotyping the poor as “lazy”, as unable to keep their commitments or otherwise blaming them for their poverty feeds prejudice against them. This picture of poverty as attributable to a failure of the individual appears particularly dominant in countries where the welfare system is less developed and protective,” the report said.

(By J. Tuyet Nguyen)

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New York, September 1 – The United Nations has made it official in its media that China has committed “serious human rights violations” against the Uyghur people and “other predominantly Muslim communities” in Xinjiang province.

UN News and the main website of the world organization at UN headquarters in New York wasted no time in publishing overnight the report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Geneva. The report was kept secret by Michelle Bachelet, the commissioner, during most of her four-year term. She released it just before ending her job on Wednesday August 31.

See the full report and China’s state response to the assessment here

UN Human Rights Office issues assessment of human rights concern in #Xinjiang #Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Read more: https://t.co/F2wpHFpIoy pic.twitter.com/f83bmfY7bZ

— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) August 31, 2022

UN News said the report stipulated that “allegations of patterns of torture, or ill-treatment, including forced medical treatment and adverse conditions of detention, are credible, as are allegations of individual incidents of sexual and gender-based violence.”

It said the strongly worded assessment at the end of the report showed that the extent of arbitrary detentions against Uyghur and others, in context of “restrictions and deprivation more generally of fundamental rights, enjoyed individually and collectively, may constitute international crimes, in particular crimes against humanity.”

The report was “based on a rigorous review of documentary material currently available to the Office, with its credibility assessed in accordance with standard human rights methodology.”

“Particular attention was given to the Government’s own laws, policies, data and statements. The Office also requested information and engaged in dialogue and technical exchanges with China throughout the process.”

The report said that the violations have taken place in the context of the Chinese Government’s assertion that it is targeting terrorists among the Uyghur minority with a counter-extremism strategy that involves the use of so-called Vocational Educational and Training Centres (VETCs), or re-education camps, “ UN News said.

UN News published a rebuttal by the Chinese government, which said that its authorities in the Xinjiang region operate on the principle that everyone is equal before the law, “and the accusation that its policy is ‘based on discrimination’ is groundless.” China said that its counter-terrorism and “de-radicalization efforts” in the region, had been conducted according to “the rule of law” and by no means add up to “suppression of ethnic minorities.”

On the issue of the camps, Beijing responded that the VETCs are “learning facilities established in accordance with law intended for de-radicalization” and not “concentration camps”.

“The lawful rights and interests of workers of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang are protected and there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’”, China’s statement said, adding that there had been no “massive violation of rights”.

The statement calls on the international community to be “clear-eyed about the truth” of its counter-terrorism campaign in the region, and “see through the clumsy performances and malicious motives of anti-China forces in the US and the West, who attempt to use Xinjiang to contain China.”

It calls instead, for the UN and other international organizations, to investigate “the human rights disasters caused, and numerous crimes committed, by the US and some other Western countries, both at home and abroad.” (from UN News)

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