Human Rights Council must not keep silent on crimes in China, Russia and Darfur!

Human rights becoming the pawn of power interests

At the beginning of the seventh and most important conference this year of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) criticised on Monday the fact that neither the serious violations of human rights in China nor in Russia are on the agenda. "The fact that startling violations of human rights are ignored for political considerations does not speak for the credibility of the Council", said the President of the GfbV International, Tilman Zülch. The Council also faces a problem of credibility in its treatment of the genocide in Darfur. The resistance of African and Islamic states and their allies have so far blocked all attempts to condemn the genocide committed against the Moslem black Africans of West Sudan.

At the conference, which begins today and continues until 28th March 2008, the African states intend to bring a resolution watering down the crimes of genocide in Darfur, criticised the GfbV. In the light of constant new attacks on the civilian population the Council must not continue to maintain silence on the responsibility of the Sudanese government for the crimes in Darfur.

In spite of many reports of international human rights organisations the Council was not able in its inaugural meeting in the year 2006 to condemn the serious violations of human rights. Instead it appointed a committee under the leadership of the Nobel winner Jody Williams to conduct further investigations. When this team in its report, which was presented in March 2007, charged the Sudanese government with being responsible for the crimes against the civilian population, its recommendations were rejected and a new group of experts was appointed. When this also presented in December 2007 a critical report it was immediately disbanded.

The GfbV has presented for the 7th conference of the UN Human Rights Council written statements on the human rights situation in Sudan, China, Burma, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Guatemala.