Remembering David Littman, a Warrior for Human Rights
Despite the serious setback for freedom of expression – which has haunted the Council ever since – David did continue, as did the harassment.
Littman: Thank you very much, Mr. President. Regarding FGM, our detailed written statement discusses the reasons why 96% of Egyptian women are still subjected to FGM despite state legislation in 1997 outlawing the practice. “Almost 90% of the female population in the north of Sudan undergo FGM which, in many cases, is practiced in its most extreme form known as infibulation” – we are quoting from the Report by the [UN] Special Rapporteur Halima Warzazi. UNICEF figures indicate that over 3 million young girls are mutilated each year in 32 countries, 29 of which are member states of the OIC [Organization of the Islamic Conference]. We believe that only a fatwa from Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Sayyad Tantawi – replacing the ambiguous fatwas of 1949, 1951 and 1981 – will change this barbaric, criminal practice, which is now growing even in Europe.Egypt: Mr. President…This is an attempt to raise a bad traditional practice to Islam. Sheikh Al-Azar is the president of the largest and the biggest and the oldest Islamic university in the world… Islam will not be crucified in this Council.
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Littman: “The Government of Pakistan vigorously condemns the practice of so-called ‘honor killings’ and that such actions do not find any place in our religion or law” – this is a quotation from President Musharraf on 28 April 2000. Yet this murderous practice seems to be on the increase in Pakistan and elsewhere – even in Europe in certain communities. It must be criminalized and the law strictly applied. The stoning of women for alleged adultery still occurs regularly in Iran, Sudan and other countries. In Iran, they are buried up to their waists in pits and blunt stones are used thereby increasing their agony in death. The marriage age for girls in Iran remains at 9 years old. In the year 2000, the Iranian Parliament attempted to increase the age to 14 but the law was overturned by the Council of Guardians. Last week …
Iran: …Mr. President, the statement and the references made by this speaker in this statement is false and has nothing to do with the realities in my country.
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Cuba:…he’s introducing a theme that in any case should have been addressed under Item 4 of the agenda. In that case you have to interrupt his statement. He is making a list of references to countries using practices that do not relate to the agenda item under discussion
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Littman: Thank you Mr. President. Integrating the human rights of women throughout the United Nations system is part of item 8…
With his marked British accent David had one particular rhetorical flourish that worked its way into most every one of his speeches — quoting Shakespeare. In January of 2008, the Human Rights Council held another of its special sessions fixated on condemning Israel and adopting a resolution calling for the “immediate protection of Palestinian civilians” — Israeli civilians be damned. At the time, Israel had had the audacity to respond to thousands of rockets launched from Gaza where the Hamas-led government had no compunction about using its own civilians as human shields.David attempted to draw attention to the Hamas provocation. Here is the exchange on January 24, 2008:
David Littman: …Sir, in order to understand the Palestinian self-inflicted tragedy in the Gaza Strip, there is an urgent need to reconsider the basic implications of the binding, genocidal Hamas Charter, concerning which we have been warning human rights bodies, high commissioners, and special rapporteurs for 20 years – all to no effect. … Let us consider the bellicose article 13 of this binding, Jihadist Charter, which categorically declares: “Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. There is no solution to the Palestinian question except by Jihad. All initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are a waste of time and vain endeavors.” This racist, Judeophobic, Nazi-like Charter proudly quotes Hassan al-Banna [gavel]
President (Doru Romulus Costea): I would like to call the distinguished representative to focus on the topic at hand. If you please, sir.
Littman: Sir, I am, and will continue. This racist, Judeophobic, Nazi-like Charter proudly quotes…: “Israel will exist and continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.” Article 2. Mr. President, surely article 3 and 4 of the Genocide Convention is here applicable [gavel]
President: Let me warn you again, sir, friendly and kindly, that we have an issue that this Council has been called to address. I would strongly urge you to focus on the issue of this session. You have the floor.
Littman: Sir, the issue is what Hamas and the government in Gaza wishes to do to Israel. I will continue. [gavel]
President: Excuse me, sir. You are making me cut your right to continue. We are not debating here the issue that you have mentioned and I would kindly ask you, for the sake of the whole audience here, and for the sake of the gravity of this topic, to focus on the issue at hand. Let me kindly tell you that this is the last warning. You have the floor, sir.
Littman: Rather than speak, I will conclude with one sentence: There is a general malaise in the air, a feeling that something is rotten in the state of this Council.
Indeed. The nauseating veneer of civility on the part of UN apparatchiks cannot disguise the moral rot that David Littman recognized and could not abide. Though many in those elegant Geneva parlors will be breathing a sigh of relief that his unconventional style will disturb their comfort zones no more, sadly, the silence will be deafening.
Understand the United Nations was created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, one of history’s greatest egotists. Breaking tradition, FDR got himself elected president to four terms. Many economists believe When he was sure the allies would defeat both Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan, Roosevelt founded the United Nations intending to be it’s head, and therefore ruler of the world. He died before that came to be.
The United Nations was supposed to be global forum for peace and human understanding. The U.N. has been anything but; it is corrupt, it has failed to prevent over 300 wars since WWII, many of those between U.N. members. The U.N. has served as a platform for Communists, Socialists, third world despots and dictators to attack the United States while handing us the bill. The U.N. is rife with anti-Jewish and Christian Leftists.
Our next president and Congress MUST pull the United States out of the United Nations and evict it from our soil…and end the dream of those who plot to hand our sovereignty over to that organisation…and end all human hope of freedom and liberty.
“Human rights” are the UN’s gift to the world. They are a substitute for freedom, and a substitute for liberty—a counterfeit of the real thing.
“Human rights” are what you beg a dictatorship for—a little less bonebreaking, a little less censorship; not freedom, for that would spell the end of the oppressive regime, but its simulacrum or trumpery imitation.
“Human rights” are even more pernicious in the United States, for here they undermine the very concept of liberty as enshrined in the Constitution. In the US, “human rights” are invariably a special pleading by a favored interest group, for affirmative action, set-asides, preferential hiring or admissions consideration, newly-invented distortions of ancient human institutions, “hate speech” codes and value-added prosecutions, etc., etc.
These things are passed off as demands for “civil rights,” but the true civil rights which all enjoy in the US are rights held against government interference; outside of the ability to tell the government to butt out, we are expected, as free people, to find our own way. But the corruption of “human rights”—of demands by special constituencies for special concessions—blurs the true and simple nobility of our civil rights edifice as it protects our liberty.
It is because the UN is a “human rights” organization through and through—a mask which conceals the brutality of dictatorships and oppressive regimes, and a rot and corruption to the liberties of a civil rights nation like our own—that the UN has no place in the United States, nor the United States in the UN.
Miss Bayesfsky, please go read AWR Hawkins’ excellent article on human rights vs. natural rights right here on PJM, and ponder it carefully.
You are, unwittingly I’m sure, aiding and abetting the enemy.
There have been recent reports that the U N is falling apart, literally.
Fact is, yes, the building is falling down, if it weren’t for all the excess wiring for spy bugs and cameras it would have been in the East River years ago. But also it never was together, it was never more than an arena for posturing and socially jousting, playing to the media and the folks back home in addition treating the diplomatic corps to the bright lights and big city. Since its inception it has popularly been known as the Den of Thieves and Spys in Manhattan.
Over the years there have been few advances for civilization emenating from this organization, excepting maybe the WHO and UNICEF. Personally I was victimized by this bunch of frauds as they first screwed up the ‘police action’ in Korea, and them wasted a year debating whether the ‘peace talk’ table should be round or square.
Just like the failed predecessors, none of the members will give up sufficient soverienty to make the process workable.