UN Rights Body Condemns Libya, Calls For Investigation Into Violence

All the members of the  UN Human Rights Council, including the Libyan representative, spoke out against the Gaddafi regime crackdown on protesters in a meeting in Geneva on Friday.

The council agreed on a draft resolution that would urgently create an international commission to investigate incidents of violence against civilians and possibly suspend Tripoli’s seat on the Rights Council. 

Libyan envoy Adel Shaltut called for a moment of silence in honor of those who lost their lives and emphasized the rift between Libya’s diplomats and the Gaddafi government loyalists in Tripoli. 

“We in the Libyan mission have categorically decided to serve as representatives of Libyan people and their free will. We only represent the Libyan people.” said Shaltut, whose statement was met with applause by Council members.

Advocacy group Human Rights Watch’s (HRW), an independent observer at the Council, said it greatly supported an urgent international inquiry into the violence. 

“Because Libyan authorities restrict the ability of human rights organizations and journalists to document ongoing violence, no one knows exactly how many people have died as a result of attack by Libyan security forces on protesters in the past week.” said Julie De Rivero HRW representative in Geneva, “By speaking directly to those who are receiving the dead at hospitals in Tripoli and Benghazi, Human RIghts Watch has compiled a toll of more than 300 deaths, but that number may only be a fraction of the number killed given the difficulty documenting the deaths on the ground.” 

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is scheduled to travel to Geneva to address the Council on Monday.

Statement by Center for Constitutional Rights on meeting with Obama

Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, met yesterday with President Obama. He released this statement:

CCR attended the meeting as did ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Charlie Swift and others. The president did not preview his speech for us. The president was very open in hearing CCR's concerns on a range of guantanamo policy issues. I came out of the meeting deeply disappointed in the direction that the administration is taking and I don't see meaningful differences between these detention policies and those erected by President Bush.

Senators Reiniforce Dedication To End Rape In Congo And Sudan

By Celia Canon- Talk Radio News Service

Top Senate Democrats and State Department officials reiterated their intent to help Sudan and the DRC with its rape problem.

According to Melanne Verveer, the U.S. State Department Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues, “36 women are raped daily” in Sudan.

"This must stop," said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). "As colleagues we must come together - across all the lines that normally divide us - to end this madness...If raping an infant is not a crime against humanity, I don’t know what is.”

The attention of lawmakers was piqued after the release of reports by Human Rights Watch, which said that “the number of women and girls raped since January has significantly increased in areas of military operations by armed groups and soldiers of the Congolese Army.”

Boxer explained the need to intervene immediately as one representing more than a humanitarian crisis. “If raping an infant is not a rime against humanity, I don’t know what is” she said.

According to Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), “The United States has an important role to play, in helping to facilitate such initiatives and ensure sound policies are implemented”.

DRC-based journalist Chouchou Namegabe Nabintu said that “The rapes are targeted and intentional, and are meant to remove the people from their mineral-rich land through fear, shame, violence, and the intentional spread of HIV throughout entire families and villages.”

Verveer said that the problem can not be resolved by attempting to prosecute perpetrators. “The law enforcement personnel and magistrates continue to treat rape and sexual violence in general with a marked lack of seriousness,” she said. But, "a solution must be found to stop the war and restore an order that will have to be completely reshaped in order to reduce the power the soldiers now have,” she said.

”Ending the conflict is the most important direct and certain path to ending the violence. Peace negotiations ... should remain our highest priority” said Verveer.

Pending legislation threatens human rights in Ethiopia

“Internal stability and anti-terrorism are main focuses for the United States in Ethiopia,” said David Kramer, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Kramer was part of a panel of experts at the Center for Strategic & International Studies who held a discussion today on “Human Rights and Governance in Ethiopia.”

“We have seen a number of efforts that are perceived in many circles, in Ethiopia and here, of trying to close the political space in Ethiopia. Of immediate concern is the latest draft of the Charities and Societies Proclamation as well as the Media Law. Both of these run the risk of curbing freedom of speech, civic development and capacity building that we feel are very important to development of a democratic system and a respect to human rights in that country,” said Kramer.

Yoseph Mulugeta Badwaza, Secretary General of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, described the likely impact of the pending legislation known as the “CSO Bill,” which threatens non-governmental organizations that receive foreign contributions in support of human rights, civic education, and peace building activities. Ethiopia is currently the third largest recipient of U.S. aid in the African continent, and the panel agreed this legislation would severely hamper human rights regulation in the country.

Chris Albin-Lackey of Human Rights Watch said the draft of this legislation “isn’t just important in it of itself, it’s also very important as a bellwether and a very alarming signal about the overall direction that Ethiopia is moving in.”