MaximsNewsNetwork: UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL & UN REP. NAVI PILLAY

MaximsNewsNetwork: 15 September 2009 - UNTV: In a key note speech to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay says that combating the scourge of discrimination and tackling impunity for attacks on civilians during armed conflict are her top priorities.

The High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has said that combating the scourge of discrimination and tackling impunity for attacks on civilians during armed conflict are her top priorities. In a keynote speech to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva today (15 September), she pointed out that no country in the world was free of human rights violations.




She said that millions of women were denied fundamental freedoms, and expressed dismay at the severe backlash against women's rights during Afghanistan's recent election.

She called on Iran to release those who had been detained after protesting peacefully at the result of recent elections and to investigate reports of their ill treatment.

Pillay noted that around the world an intolerable number of people continue to live in camps and that those who had been internally displaced in the conflict between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil Tigers were effectively detained under conditions of internment. She also expressed concern at the lack of access to those camps for humanitarian agencies, whose mandates she said were increasingly coming under threat.

The High Commissioner also spoke out on what she called the alarming global trend of governments persecuting or even killing peaceful opponents and critics, citing the 20-year prison sentence imposed on Sri Lankan journalist J.S Tissainayagam, who had criticized the army's treatment of Tamil civilians.

While condemning the violence committed during the recent disturbances in the Xinjiang and Tibetan Autonomous Regions, Pillay urged the Chinese authorities to respect human rights in their efforts to uphold the law, and to "reflect on the underlying causes of such incidents, which include discrimination and the failure to protect minority rights".

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