Tag Archives: Navi Pillay

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UN: Some 5,000 Syrians being killed every month

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An estimated 5,000 Syrians are dying every month in the country’s civil war and refugees are fleeing at a rate not seen since the 1994 Rwanda genocide, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

“In Syria today, serious human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity are the rule,” said Ivan Simonovic, the assistant secretary-general for human rights, told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday.

He added that “the extremely high rate of killings … demonstrates the drastic deterioration of this conflict.”

U.N. refugee chief Antonio Guterres said two-thirds of the nearly 1.8 million Syrian refugees known to the agency have fled since the beginning of 2013, an average of over 6,000 daily.

“We have not seen a refugee outflow escalate at such a frightening rate since the Rwandan genocide almost 20 years ago,” he said.

U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said at least 6.8 million Syrians require urgent humanitarian assistance and accused the government and opposition of “systematically and in many cases deliberately” failing their obligation to protect civilians.

“This is a regional crisis not a crisis in Syria with regional consequences, requiring sustained and comprehensive engagement from the international community,” Amos said by videoconference from Geneva.

“The security, economic, political, social, development and humanitarian consequences of this crisis are extremely grave and its human impact immeasurable in terms of the long-term trauma and emotional impact on this and future generations of Syrians,” she said. “We are not only watching the destruction of a country but also of its people.”

Simonovic said that since U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay reported last month that at least 92,901 people had been killed between March 2011 when the conflict began and the end of April 2013, government forces and militias have moved to uproot the opposition in many areas including Qusair and Talkalkh, Aleppo, Damascus and its suburbs.

“Government forces carry on with indiscriminate and disproportionate shelling and aerial bombardments, using among other weapons tactical ballistic missiles, cluster and thermobaric bombs, all causing extensive damage and casualties if used in densely populated areas,” he said.

“As a result, hundreds of civilians, including women and children were killed, thousands injured, and tens of thousands displaced,” Simonovic said. “Many displaced in the parts of Homs …read more

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UN: Rape, violence raging in C. African Republic

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The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says the security situation in Central African Republic is deteriorating three weeks after the government was overthrown.

Navi Pillay on Tuesday expressed concern about “a wide range of alleged grave violations” including rape, torture, kidnappings and targeted killings.

Pillay said at least 119 people have been killed since President Francois Bozize was ousted from power on March 24 by rebels from an alliance known as Seleka.

The U.N. also has heard of at least 19 cases of sexual violence in Berberati, and several other reported attacks in the capital of Bangui.

Rebel leader Michel Djotodia is now president of a transitional council that plans for elections within 18 months, though critics say his government lacks control over its fighters in the streets.

From: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/world/~3/G7wKf3JA-vc/

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UN rights chief presses US to shut Guantanamo

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The United Nations’ top human rights official pressed the U.S. on Friday to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, strongly criticizing the indefinite detention of inmates at the facility.

President Barack Obama pledged to shutter the prison soon after taking office, but Congress opposed it, passing a law that prohibits the government from transferring Guantanamo prisoners to U.S. soil and requiring security guarantees before they can be sent elsewhere.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said she is “deeply disappointed” Washington hasn’t closed the facility. She urged all branches of the government to work together to shut it.

Pillay, who has long urged Guantanamo’s closure, said in a statement that “the continuing indefinite incarceration of many of the detainees amounts to arbitrary detention and is in clear breach of international law.”

She welcomed a recent White House statement that the administration remains committed to closing the facility.

“Nevertheless, this systemic abuse of individuals’ human rights continues year after year,” Pillay said. “We must be clear about this: the United States is in clear breach not just of its own commitments, but also of international laws and standards that it is obliged to uphold. When other countries breach these standards, the U.S. — quite rightly — strongly criticizes them for it.”

Pillay said of a hunger strike currently being staged by detainees that “given the uncertainty and anxieties surrounding their prolonged and apparently indefinite detention in Guantanamo, it is scarcely surprising that people’s frustrations boil over and they resort to such desperate measures.”

…read more

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NKorea condemns UN call for human rights probe

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North Korea has condemned a U.N. resolution approving a formal investigation into its suspected human rights violations.

North Korea‘s Foreign Ministry said Friday that it will completely ignore the resolution adopted Thursday by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The resolution calls for the creation of a team of independent experts to investigate for one year what U.N. officials suspect as widespread and systematic violations of human rights in North Korea.

Top U.N. human rights official Navi Pillay has said the U.N. has evidence indicating up to 200,000 people are held in North Korean political prison camps rife with torture, rape and slave labor.

…read more
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A look at Syria's civil war

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CASUALTIES: The number of people killed in Syria‘s civil war is nearing 70,000, according to U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. The Britain-based Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, claims 56,416 people have been killed. The Observatory’s figure includes 13,787 Syrian government troops. There are no precise death tolls available from the Syrian regime.

— REFUGEES: U.N. humanitarian chief Valerie Amos says the growing number of Syrians affected by the civil war in Syria is now 4 million and rising. They include an estimated 2 million displaced within Syria and nearly 925,000 who have fled the country. Most of the refugees have gone to neighboring Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon, and the influx is outstripping those countries’ and the international community’s ability to help.

— INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCES: President Bashar Assad can count on his traditional Shiite allies, Iran and Lebanon‘s Hezbollah. The regime also enjoys crucial political cover from Russia and China, which have used their vetoes in the U.N. Security Council to prevent U.N. sanctions on Syria.

The rebels have built an array of regional support that includes the wealthy Gulf states — led by regional Sunni power Saudi Arabia — and neighboring Turkey, which offers key supply routes. The West also backs the rebel forces, but has so far opposed supplying them with significant weapons or mobilizing international military support similar to the NATO-led air campaign that helped topple Moammar Gadhafi‘s regime in Libya.

— THE FIGHT ON THE GROUND: The regime has lost significant swaths of territory to the rebels, particularly in the northeast near the border with Turkey. But while the rebels control most of the countryside, the Syrian military remains in control of most of the cities. Currently, the two key fronts in the war are in Aleppo, the country’s largest city and a former commercial hub, and in Damascus, the capital.

Aleppo has been carved into rebel- and government-controlled zones, and neither side has been able to overwhelm the other in a contest that has descended into a brutal slog for each city block.

In Damascus, the regime is relying on its best equipped and most loyal troops, and has managed to keep a tight grip on the center of the city. Some of the capital’s suburbs, however, have been rebel strongholds since the early days of the uprising, and opposition fighters are using the towns and villages on Damascus’ doorstep to slowly try to push their way into the heart of …read more
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Sri Lanka under pressure to probe war crimes

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The photo shows a boy sitting by a row of sandbags as he glumly eats a snack. The next photo shows him with a series of bullet holes in his chest.

The makers of a documentary on Sri Lanka say the boy was the 12-year-old son of Sri Lankan insurgent leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, and that the photos prove he was executed by the Sri Lankan military. Sri Lanka denies the charge.

The accusation comes as Sri Lanka is struggling to fend off a surge of criticism about its conduct in the final days of the war in 2009 and its treatment of the Tamil minority in the four years since.

Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, has accused the country of failing to investigate reports of atrocities.

…read more
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UN panel says Syria war crimes should go to trial

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A United Nations commission on Monday said fighters on both sides in Syria‘s civil war have committed atrocities and should be brought to justice, while European Foreign Ministers extended an arms embargo on the country in hopes it would limit the ability of both sides to wage war.

The announcements had little resonance inside Syria, however, where rebels fought to capture airbases in the north and the forces of President Bashar Assad shelled rebellious areas throughout the country.

The spreading violence inside Syria despite international efforts to stop it reflects the dilemma that Syria‘s nearly two-year-old conflict poses for the international community.

Despite pleas from the anti-Assad opposition, even sympathetic powers are resistant to provide arms, fearing they’ll fall into the hands of Islamic extremists who have risen in the rebel ranks. At the same time, international calls for a negotiated solution have gone nowhere, mostly because both sides still seek military victory.

In this context, the report issued Monday by the U.N.-appointed Commission of Inquiry on Syria served as a grim state-of-play on the brutal conflict that the U.N. says has killed some 70,000 people since March 2011.

The 131-page report detailed deepening radicalization by both sides, who increasingly see the war in sectarian terms and rely on brutal tactics to advance their cause, spreading fear and hardship among the country’s civilians.

The report accused both sides of atrocities, while saying that those committed by rebel fighters have not reached the “intensity and scale” of the government‘s violations.

Regime forces and its associated militias have committed crimes against humanity, the report said, citing murder, torture and rape. It said rebels have committed war crimes, including murder, torture, looting and hostage-taking.

The report also accused both sides of using child soldiers, citing the presence of fighters younger than 18 on the government side and under 15 among the rebels.

The commission said it will submit a new, confidential list of Syrians suspected of committing crimes against humanity to the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, next month.

Speaking to reporters in Geneva, commission member Carla del Ponte criticized world powers for not doing more to stop the war and called on the U.N. Security Council to refer Syria …read more
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UN: Syria death toll probably approaching 70,000

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U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay says the number of people killed in Syria‘s civil war is probably now approaching 70,000.

Less than six weeks ago, Pillay said the death toll had exceeded 60,000, a figure she called “truly shocking.”

But she told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that there have probably been almost 10,000 new deaths in recent weeks.

Pillay said the council’s deep division and inaction over the nearly two-year-old Syrian conflict “has been disastrous, and civilians on all sides have paid the price.”

She again urged the council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court.

…read more
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