UN Tries to Impose Gender/Sexuality Agenda on Catholic Church

The UN watchdog on children’s rights which recently hauled the Vatican over the coals for its handling of sex abuse has today released its recommendations. The report is not only ignorant and misguided, peddling myths for which there is no foundation, but betrays an extraordinary misunderstanding of the nature of the Church and the Holy See, while seeking to impose an ideology of gender and sexuality in violation of the UN’s own commitment to religious freedom.

Although the Holy See has responded diplomatically to the report (see below), promising to look at the recommendations, the Secretariat of State cannot possibly accept them without doing violation to the nature of the Church. By adopting the mythical framework peddled by victims’ advocacy groups and lawyers, and ignoring the evidence put to it by the Holy See on 16 January (see CV Comment here, and Archbishop Tomasi’s speech here), the Committee has shown itself to be a kangaroo court. The Holy See can only now consider withdrawing its signature to the Convention. The Committee has very seriously undermined both its own credibility and that of the UN as a whole.

The 16-page UN report is so full of crass errors and myths that it is impossible to tackle them all. But the principal faults can be gathered under the three headings of 1) ignorance about the Church’s record on abuse 2) misunderstanding about the Church 3) attempt to impose an ideology of sexuality and gender.

Read it all here. 

Syria Peace Conference Unlikely

25 June 2013 – An international conference to find a political solution to the Syria crisis is not likely to be held in July, the Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and the Arab League for Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said today.

“Frankly now, I doubt whether the conference will take place in July,” Mr. Brahimi said ahead of talks in Geneva with Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Bogdanov and US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Wendy Sherman.

This meeting, the first since the officials last met on 5 June, is due to pave the way for a potential conference aimed at finding a political settlement to the fighting between the Syrian army and opposition forces seeking to oust President Bashar Al-Assad, which since March 2011 has claimed more than 93,000 lives and sent some 1.5 million people fleeing to neighbouring countries for safety.

Read it all here.

Related reading: Morsi to Hezbollah: Get Out of Syria; Saudi Arabia: Iran and Hezbollah in Syria is Dangerous

Syrian Refugees Face Harsh Winter

11 January 2013 – The United Nations refugee agency today said today it is implementing measures to help more than 600,000 displaced Syrians weather harsh winter conditions, while warning that the number of people fleeing the violence in the Middle Eastern country continues to grow.

"The severe winter conditions across Syria and the surrounding region this past week have brought new difficulties for refugees and other displaced people," a spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Adrian Edwards, told reporters in Geneva.

He added, "Even with the winter preparation work that has been done in recent months, many refugees in both camp and non-camp situations are facing particularly cold and damp conditions."

There are currently 612,134 people registered or awaiting registration as refugees in Syria's neighbouring countries, and Mr. Edwards said the numbers have not slowed down in recent weeks.

In northern Jordan, the Za'atri camp flooded last week as a result of some of the worst weather conditions the country has seen in the past 20 years. UNHCR delivered several truckloads of gravel to elevate the ground level and improve drain-off. Work was also done to release water into the creeks surrounding the camp, and Mr. Edwards said the whole site should be dry soon.

"Health services in Za'atri camp are all operational with mobile clinics covering the affected area in the camp, detecting medical cases in need of transfers to the camp hospital and treating primary health care patients on the spot," he said, adding that they are also assisting newly-arrived people who faced a hazardous journey.

"Many of those arriving have been barefoot, with their clothing soaked, and covered in mud and snow. Refugees report discarding their belongings to carry their children through flooded countryside to Jordan," he added. "For people arriving at the border, UNHCR managed yesterday to send 1,000 blankets, 500 mattresses along with emergency clothing. Our partners at WFP [UN World Food Programme] also sent 3,000 welcome meals."

In Lebanon, UNHCR and its partners are working to address the floods that have affected various refugee settlements in the country's north, as well as a warehouse housing refugees in the city of Sidon. The agency has also increased the distribution of essential items – such as warm blankets, heater, fuel vouchers, winter clothing and plastic sheeting – to help families face the freezing temperatures. In addition, 6,700 families have had their homes weather-proofed, and renovation help has been provided to 5,300 others.

In Turkey, UNHCR is working with the Turkish Red Crescent to reinforce camps against the winter by providing thousands of winterized tents, electrical heaters and thermal blankets, among other items. However, despite many of the precautions taken, there were two fires last month at different camps which claimed the lives of five children and injured two others.

Heavy snow in Iraq has affected refugees living in the Domiz camp in the Dohuk governorate, Mr. Edwards said. In addition, the prices for basic commodities have increased and there have been shortages of winter medicines and food. UNHCR is currently looking at additional measure to tackle this issue including the provision of cash assistance and construction materials to improve shelters.

In Syria itself, the UN refugee agency continues to provide winterization aid to those who have been internally displaced, and 40 shelters have been set up throughout the country. By the end of 2012, UNHCR had assisted over 400,000 people in accessible areas of the country, providing non-food aid, and in addition cash aid to nearly 15,000 families.

"Despite the difficult security conditions, we are continuing to work to help people where we can – often working through partner organizations," Mr. Edwards added. "However, difficulties of access mean we cannot reach all people in need."

Source: UN News Source

Related reading:  Syria Talks End With No Breakthrough; Fleeing Violence, Syrian Refugees Weather a Cruel Winter

Russia Rejects UN's "Evolving" Morals

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

GENEVA, December 14 (C-FAM) A UN committee of legal experts reprimanded the Russian Federation last month for allowing the Ryazan province of Russia to enforce a law that bans the promotion of homosexuality among minors as part of a national effort to protect children from early sexualization, and related adverse health consequences.

In 2009 Irina Fedotova, a lesbian activist, lodged a complaint against Russia with the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors the implementation of the 1966 International Convention of Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). She was detained and fined for standing outside a secondary school with posters that read “Homosexuality is normal” and “I’m proud of my homosexuality – ask me about it.” Russian secondary schools are attended by children as young as 10 and as old as 17.

The UN committee decided that Ms. Fedotova had “not made any public actions aimed at involving minors in any particular sexual activity or at advocating any particular sexual orientation” and that she was merely “giving expression to her sexual identity and seeking understanding for it.”

The decision of the committee, known as “views” because it is neither binding nor enforceable, was divulged on November 30, and comes at a time when the Russian Federation is being widely criticized for bans on the promotion of homosexuality among minors enacted by several provinces and municipalities of the country. Similar legislation is being contemplated at the federal level.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation, according to Russia’s Constitutional Court, allows bans on the promotion of homosexuality among minors to preserve their health and morals.

The 1966 treaty on civil and political rights under which the complaint was brought similarly lists the preservation of public health and morals as one of three grounds on which state parties may limit free speech. The Human Rights Committee, formed by that treaty, disagrees with the Russian Constitutional Court on whether homosexuality is a sufficient moral and health concern to curtail free speech.

Despite differences between UN member states on homosexuality, and the absence of any mention of homosexuality in the treaty it is charged with monitoring, the committee bases its rationale on the “evolving” nature of moral standards.

Citing its own interpretation of the 1966 treaty published in a non-binding document last year, known as General Comment 34, the committee maintains that limitations on speech “for the purpose of protecting morals must be based on principles not deriving exclusively from a single tradition” and that in order to avoid being discriminatory they must be based on “objective criteria.” The committee found Ryazan’s ban on the promotion of homosexuality among children defective on both counts.

Russia argued that the law did not affect Ms. Fedotova’s private conduct in any way, and that the purpose of the law was to protect minors from “derangements of their spiritual, mental, physical and social development.” But the experts said that even if Ms. Fedotova’s purpose was to engage children on the subject of homosexuality this would not justify curtailing her speech.

Laws banning the promotion of homosexuality among minors are routinely enforced by Russian authorities, as two celebrity divas have discovered. Madonna faced a lawsuit after she voiced support for homosexual rights during a recent tour. Reuters reported this week that Lady Gaga has been threatened with similar action because she did the same at a concert in St. Petersburg on Sunday.


From here.

Female Circumcision

Michael Cook

It's hard to think of a more reviled practice than female genital mutilation. It is a crime in many countries - and the United Nations human rights committee has just passed a resolution calling upon the General Assembly to condemn it. This could take place as early as this month.

A spokesman for Amnesty International summed up the outrage: "FGM is an indictment of us all that a girl or young woman can be held down and mutilated is a violation of her human rights and, shockingly, an estimated 3 million girls are at risk each year."

However, believe it or not, there are another side to this story. Here is a health adviser to the vice-president of Sierra Leone, Fuambai S. Ahmadu, speaking to an anthropology conference in San Francisco last month: "How can Western public health officials, global health institutions and feminist organizations maintain a straight face in condemning African female genital surgeries as FGM and yet turn a blind eye, even issue guidelines for the performance of very similar and sometimes more invasive female genital surgeries on Western women under the guise of cosmetic surgery?"

Dr Ahmadu's perspective is not a popular one, to say the least. But a group of which she is a member, The Public Policy Advisory Network on Female Genital Surgeries in Africa, has issued a vigorous rebuttal of allegations of sexism, oppressive patriarchy, torture and mutilation which dominate in the Western media. It has been published in the current issue of a leading bioethics journal, the Hastings Center Report.

The authors' aim is to "move the coverage of the topic from an over-heated, ideologically charged, and one-sided story about 'mutilation,' morbidity, and patriarchal oppression to a real, evidence-based policy debate governed by the standards of critical reason and fact checking."

The claims and counter-claims are too long to list. But the authors - about 15 of them, mostly from Western countries - make the following points about female genital mutilation (or "female genital surgery", as they call it):

Medical research has found that a high percentage of women who have had genital surgery have rich sexual lives.

Medical complications are uncommon.

Those who value female genital surgery view it as aesthetic enhancement, not mutilation.

In almost all societies where female genital surgery is performed, male genital surgery also takes place. Women are not singled out.

The link between patriarchy and female genital surgery is unfounded. The practice is not customary in the world's most sexually restrictive societies.

Women manage and control female genital surgery in Africa and groups that fight against female genital surgery weaken the power of women.

Criticism of an influential 2006 WHO study in The Lancet about "deadly consequences" has been ignored. The evidence does not support sensational media claims.

Provocatively, the authors argue that women and girls who have undergone genital mutilation should not be stigmatized or taught to expect sexual dysfunction. This might cause "psychological mutilation", potentially compromising the development of a normal and healthy psychosexual life.

Female genital mutilation is too hot a potato to take sides. But as Nawal M. Nour, an obstetrician-gynecologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, writes in a sympathetic response to the advisory group's observations, "Speaking as both an African woman and an obstetrician-gynecologist, I hope that this practice ends during my lifetime. However, the impetus to abandon female genital cutting must come from within each community; a ban on it cannot be imposed by outsiders".

From here.

Related reading: Female Circumcision in Cultural Context; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Female Circumcision or Female Genital Mutilation?; Circumcision Debated; The Origins of Circumcision; Circumcision Among Abraham's Horite Caste

Ahmadinejad's End Times Speech

Is Ahmadinejad's fiery speech before the UN a "prophecy" he intends to bring to fulfillment?

Here is part of Joel C. Rosenberg's report:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday called for the end of the “hegemonic” powers of the United States and Israel, whom he described as “the uncivilized Zionists.” He said the world would ”soon” see new “global management” by the Twelfth Imam, also known as the “Mahdi,” and his deputy, Jesus Christ.

This was Ahmadinejad’s eighth and likely final annual address to the opening fall session of the United Nations General Assembly. He is expected to finish his second term in office in June 2013. In each of his past U.N. speeches, he prayed for the soon coming of the so-called Islamic messiah. This time he went much further, offering his most detailed explanation to date of his Shia Islamic eschatology (End Times theology) and his understanding of the coming rule of the Twelfth Imam.

Ahmadinejad told the leaders of the world gathered in Manhattan that he had come this time “to voice the divine and humanitarian message…to you and to the whole world.”

Read it all here.


It is disturbing that the President of the United States speaks against Iranian Nukes, but not against this incendiary kind of speech. When Obama said that the future doesn't belong to those blaspheme the Prophet, was he saying that those who are not Islamic have no future; should this be taken as a threat?


Related reading: Ahmadinejad: Mideast without Israel and US

Number of Syrian Refugees in Jordan Swells

The number of refugees fleeing the violence in Syria and seeking humanitarian aid in northern Jordan has more than doubled in the past week alone, the United Nations refugee agency said today, warning that a much larger influx of refugees could be expected in the coming days.

According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the amount of registered refugees seeking shelter at the Za’atri camp, in the north of Jordan, has surged to 10,200 people for the seven day period, spanning 21 – 27 August, compared to just 4,500 in the previous week.

“Refugees say many thousands more are waiting to cross amid violence around Daraa and we believe this could be the start of a much larger influx,” a UNHCR spokesperson, Melissa Fleming, told a media briefing in Geneva today.

Syria has been wracked by violence, with more than 17,000 people, mostly civilians, killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 17 months ago. Over the past month, there have been reports of an escalation in violence in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. In addition, the conflict has displaced many people, both inside the country and into neighbouring countries.

In her news briefing, Ms. Fleming further noted that some of the Syrian refugees who had made it over the border in recent days reported being targeted by aerial strafing and bombing operations, as well as by shelling and mortars.

“Typically, refugees cross the border at night and are taken straight to the camp by IOM [International Organization for Migration] and the Jordanian army,” she said. “But 1,147 refugees arrived yesterday morning and were followed by another 1,400 overnight and early this morning.”

Pointing to the surge in children as refugees, Ms. Fleming noted that the UN agency had also received an increased number of unaccompanied minors to their camps over the past week.

“Some children report that their parents have died, or are staying behind in Syria to look after relatives, or are working in other countries,” she added. “Some children, who did not have passports, said they were sent ahead of their parents who will follow later.”

In its recent report on the condition of child refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) confirmed that half of the refugees sheltered at Za’atri were, in fact, children.

“The fast pace of arrivals has affected our efforts to improve conditions for the existing population, but work on this continues,” Ms. Fleming said, adding that UNHCR was urgently pitching more tents and expanding the camp. The refugee agency spokesperson also drew attention to the dramatic increase in the number of Syrians crossing into Turkey, swelling from an initial daily estimate of 400-500 new arrivals to 5,000 people arriving at the Syrian-Turkish border every day over the past two weeks.

“In the past 24 hours, over 3,000 Syrians are reported to have crossed into Turkey, with a further 7,000 expected to cross in the coming days,” she stated, urging an increase in international support to back Turkey’s efforts assisting the refugees as the country prepares to open an additional five or six camps for a total overall capacity of up to 150,000 people.

In the meantime, while UNHCR said that there was no registered increment in the flow of refugees to Lebanon and Iraq, it voiced concern that a new front had been opened in the refugees’ migratory pattern, following reports that seven Syrians had died when the fishing boat transporting them sank off the north coast of Cyprus last week. The boat was carrying four men, one woman, and two children, according to the Cypriot coastguard.

Source: GlobalSecurity.org News Brief

Brahimi Appointed to Syria Crisis

Veteran diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi will be the new Joint Special Representative of the United Nations and League of Arab States for the crisis in Syria, taking over the peace-facilitation role played over the past several months by former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a spokesperson for the world organization said today.

Mr. Brahimi is expected to assume his duties following the expiration of Mr. Annan’s mandate on 31 August 2012.

“The Secretary-General appreciates Mr. Brahimi’s willingness to bring his considerable talents and experience to this crucial task for which he will need, and rightly expects, the strong, clear and unified support of the international community, including the Security Council,” a UN spokesperson said at a media briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

He added that both Secretary-General Ban, and his counterpart at the League of Arab States, Nabil El Araby, were pleased to make the announcement of the appointment.

“Diplomacy to promote a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Syria remains a top priority for the United Nations,” the spokesperson said. “More fighting and militarization will only exacerbate the suffering and make more difficult the path to a peaceful resolution of the crisis which would lead to a political transition in accordance with the legitimate aspirations of the Syrian people.”

The President of the General Assembly, Nassir Abdulaziz Al-Nasser, also welcomed Mr. Brahimi’s appointment. According to a statement issued by his spokesperson, Mr. Al-Nasser thanked Mr. Brahimi for accepting to undertake what he called “a crucial assignment” aimed at ending the Syrian violence.

“Mr. Brahimi brings to this difficult task his well-known experience, credibility and diligence,” the statement said. “President Al-Nasser wishes him success in his endeavours.”

Mr. Annan was appointed Joint Special Envoy for the crisis in Syria in late February to provide good offices on behalf of the UN and Arab League, with the aim of bringing an end to all violence and human rights violations in Syria, and promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict.

Syria has been wracked by violence, with more than 17,000 people, mostly civilians, killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 17 months ago. Over recent days, there have been reports of an escalation in violence in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo.

As part of his efforts, Mr. Annan put forward a six-point peace plan. It called for an end to violence, access for humanitarian agencies to provide relief to those in need, the release of detainees, the start of inclusive political dialogue, and unrestricted access to the country for the international media.

Despite initial signs of acceptance of the six-point plan, repeated calls from international officials and the deployment of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) to monitor a ceasefire, there was little in the way of the plan’s implementation by the parties to the conflict.

Due to that lack of progress, UNSMIS’ mandate is expected to be allowed to expire this coming Sunday by the Security Council, while that body is at the same time working with Secretary-General Ban to keep a UN presence on the ground, through a liaison office that will continue to support the Special Representative’s efforts.

“The Secretary-General takes this opportunity to reiterate his deepest gratitude to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan for his selfless efforts and contributions to the search for peace in Syria,” the spokesperson added.

Mr. Brahimi, an Algerian national, has served the United Nations in various high-level roles over in the past two decades, including heading the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), serving as an advisor on a range of issues, and chairing an independent panel on peacekeeping operations which released its keynote findings, known as the “Brahimi Report,” in 2000. Also, as an Algerian diplomat, Mr. Brahimi served with the League of Arab States from 1984 to 1991.

Source: Global Security

U.N. and Russia Condemn Houla Massacre

The United Nations Security Council condemned on Monday a massacre of dozens of Syrian civilians, including children, in the country's western village of Houla.

“The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of [Houla], near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighbourhood,” the Council members said in a statement issued following a closed-door emergency meeting in New York.

“The members of the Security Council also condemned the killing of civilians by shooting at close range and by severe physical abuse,” the statement said.

General Robert Mood, the head of the U.N. observer mission, told the Council members during a video link that more than 100 people, including some 30 children under the age of 10, had been killed in Houla, a cluster of villages in the Homs province, on Friday and Saturday.

An amateur video posted online showed people in Houla burying their slaughtered relatives in mass graves, as well as bloodied bodies of children, some with their skulls split open. The brutal images triggered shock around the world, raising questions over the viability of a peace plan proposed by the joint UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan to stop 15 months of bloodshed in Syria.
Kofi Annan, the U.N./Arab League special envoy to Syria, urged “every individual with a gun” to lay down their weapons as he arrived in Damascus Monday. He condemned the massacre of at least 108 people in Houla as “an appalling crime,” saying the government has to prove it is ready to work for peace. Annan was scheduled to meet Syria’s foreign minister and would hold talks with President Bashar al-Assad Tuesday, reports Al Jazeera.

The Assad regime, however, seems to care little, if at all, about international condemnation. Reuters reports that at least 41 people were killed in an assault on the nearby city of Hama, shortly after the U.N. Security Council condemned the massacre, according to activists.

In a sign of how much the horrific images coming out of Houla have shocked the world, even Russia, long one of Syria’s most reliable allies, said the government was at least partly to blame for the killings over the weekend, reports the Associated Press. “Both sides have obviously had a hand in the deaths of innocent people,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.



Iranian Troops in Syria


A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander has admitted that Iran has sent its troops to help the regime of embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fight opposition forces.

“Before our presence in Syria, too many people were killed by the opposition but with the physical and non-physical presence of the Islamic republic, big massacres in Syria were prevented,” Ismail Gha’ani, the deputy head of Iran’s Quds force, a shadowy branch of the Revolutionary Guards in charge of overseas operations, said in an interview with the semi-official Iranian Student’s News Agency (ISNA), according to a report by the Persian-language GozaraNews website.

Read more here and here.

Argentina Expedites Abortion in Rape Cases

By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.

NEW YORK, March 30 (C-FAM) In a surprising ruling, the Supreme Court of Argentina has declared abortion is a woman’s right in case of rape under international law. Under the ruling health service providers would be required to provide abortions “immediately and expeditiously” when a woman claims that her pregnancy is the result of rape.

 
The Court affirmed a lower court ruling that the Argentine penal code allows women to obtain an abortion in case of rape and without a judicial order. The case involved a 15-year-old-girl who claimed she became pregnant as a result of rape by her mother’s husband.

Though Argentina’s Constitution is silent on the rights of the unborn, legal professionals and government officials are nonetheless shocked by the decision. As recently as 2001 the same court recognized the right to life of unborn human beings from the moment of conception in the Portal de Belen decision that banned the morning-after pill.

The Argentine court argued it was bound to interpret its penal code to “harmonize” its national laws with what they consider to be Argentina’s international treaty obligations. By itself this is not controversial in Argentina where international law is incorporated into the Constitution and judicial activism is typical.

The court found an international right to abortion in cases of rape in the recommendations to Argentina by UN treaty bodies charged with monitoring the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as the general opinions of the World Health Organization.

Legal scholars and other experts say such an interpretation is erroneous. According to the San Jose Articles, a document drafted by more than 30 experts in international law, no UN body can claim that abortion is a human right in any circumstance because there is no international law recognizing abortion. No international treaty even mentions abortion. When UN bodies claim an international right to abortion they exceed their mandate.

Legal experts point out that in fact, UN treaties contain provisions that should be used, if at all, to protect the unborn from abortion. Instead, the Argentine court painstakingly went through several treaty provisions to deny that international instruments should be used to protect the rights of the unborn.

Prior to the Argentine decision, the only Latin American court to ascribe any binding authority to UN treaty body opinions that create a right to abortion was the Supreme Court of Colombia in a 2006 ruling. The high courts of Chile, Mexico, and Peru have refused to accord any binding authority to these opinions of UN treaty bodies.

The decision’s aftermath will be even more significant than the decision itself. Unlike the rulings of the US Supreme Court, the highest court in Argentina can only decide individual cases, and these do not create binding precedents. But the decision can gain more importance if it is opposed or endorsed by politicians, lower courts and the media.

The governors of the provinces of Mendoza and Salta reacted by denouncing the Court’s decision as erroneous and invalid because it gives UN bodies more authority than they have.

The ruling has inevitably galvanized abortion advocates. A draft bill that would legalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is already being proposed in the Argentine legislature. It is uncertain whether the bill will appear before the legislature. A similar bill failed during the last session.

UN Guards Confiscate Youth's Backpacks

By Wendy Wright

 

 

NEW YORK, March 2 (C-FAM) Youth attending a UN conference on women’s issues this week say UN security officers confiscated their backpacks after discovering pro-life literature.

 

The confiscated materials were petitions to “Stop Sexualizing Children,” and were connected to a UN approved workshop led this week by Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child psychiatrist and author of “You're Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child.”

The offending flyer announced a project called the “Girls Coalition to Protect the Health and Innocence of Children,” which is an ad hoc group that sponsored the Grossman event. At the panel, girls from China, Spain and Mexico launched a petition calling on UN agencies to “Stop Sexualizing Children.” They charge the UN’s promotion of “comprehensive sexuality education” is harmful to children.

The young people insist they were not leafleting, which is forbidden on UN property, though it is routinely ignored. The young students left UN grounds to make more copies. Upon their return they were stopped by UN security.

One of the students, Kalli Lawrence, said that the guards noticed the group’s distinctive green backpacks and then ordered the students to hand them over. “The guards had this confused, angry look on their faces,” she reported, “and they started telling all the security guards, ‘don’t let any of these yellow papers go through, just take them all and keep them.’”

The green backpacks and literature were stored in lockers at a security checkpoint. Students and their teachers were allowed to retrieve some of the backpacks as they left UN property.

According to teacher Jody Dunn, some of the backpacks were not returned, those that contained a pro-life documentary called “180”. Dunn then insisted and those backpacks were returned also.

Pro-lifers have long felt the sting of selective enforcement of UN rules. Kali Lawrence said, “They didn’t stop anyone else that we could see passing out flyers.”

Upon questioning by the Friday Fax, the security officer in charge at the time said guards don’t “target” items. He went on to say they were not allowed to discuss policies or procedures.

Observers speculate that someone connected to Commission organizers complained to UN security. At the Cairo conference on Population and Development in 1994, without any evidence, former US Senator Timothy Wirth told UN security that a certain pro-lifer was a violent threat. The person was detained and deported.

Alliance Defense Fund attorney Piero Tozzi told the Friday Fax, "The UN cannot censor speech it does not agree with. Both the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the Human Rights Committee have recently emphasized the need to protect this fundamental freedom. Why then is speech by respectful, clean cut kids on a topic vital to keeping young people healthy being censored at the UN?"

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Source:  Friday Fax

Independent Researchers Challenge Another WHO Report

Lucia Muchova

Washington, DC, February 24 (C-FAM) A new study by an independent group of researchers shows that the World Health Organization (WHO) has significantly underestimated malaria mortality figures in its 2011 Malaria Report. This is another blow to the credibility of the top global health organization in just two years.

A paper published in The Lancet medical journal this month by researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle found that 1.238 million deaths worldwide were directly attributable to malaria – almost twice the 655,000 deaths reported by WHO.

The report also delivered surprising news about the real causes of global child mortality. Malaria mortality was 1.3 times more than the reported WHO figure for children younger than 5 years in Africa; 8.1 times higher for those aged 5 years or older in Africa and 1.8 times higher for all ages outside of Africa.  The IHME team estimated 24% of child deaths in Africa to be attributable to malaria compared with 16% quoted in the WHO report for 2008.

Compiling data from 105 countries using modern methodological tools, IHME found that malaria deaths in 2010 in individuals aged 5 years or older were 524,000 compared to the WHO figure of 91,000, almost 6 times higher. Overall, 433,000 more deaths in those aged 5 or above occurred due to malaria in 2010 than quoted by the WHO. The researchers say these numbers could be even higher if more corrections were made to misclassified data and if malaria was counted as an aggravating factor for other causes of death.

That malaria mortality has been underestimated has significant policy implications. It means that organizations like UNICEF should scale up their funds to child survival programs to reduce the large number of child deaths from malaria in Africa. It means that WHO and others should increase their engagement in malaria control and prevention programs. It also means that the UN agencies should pay much closer attention to their data collection and use.

This is not the first time that independent researchers acted as watchdogs on the UN’s use of poor statistics. Slightly more than a year ago, the same journal published a credible report by the same group of researchers exposing the inflated maternal mortality figures reported by UN agencies. The statistics used by the WHO and UNICEF were deemed erroneous and the methodology badly flawed. And yet such statistics have been cited by policy makers to push for more funding for reproductive health measures – including abortion – instead of mortality-reducing programs aimed at the main causes of maternal death.

In the past few years, independent monitoring of international bodies and the information they disseminate has discovered serious discrepancies. One of the most recent initiatives is the establishment of WECARE, the World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education, bringing together credentialed scientists in the area of abortion-research to present objective information about health effects of abortion. Most recently, they have published a comprehensive critical analysis of a widely cited Guttmacher study claiming abortion is safer than childbirth.


Source: Friday Fax

Syria on the Brink of Civil War

VOA News


In-Depth Coverage The chief of the Arab League warned Friday that Syria may be heading towards a civil war as thousands of Syrians took to the streets in support of an armed rebel group.

Arab League head Nabil Elaraby made the comments in interviews with The Associated Press and and Egyptian television station while anti-government protesters voiced support for the Free Syrian Army, composed mainly of former soldiers.

Activists say 20,000 gathered in the town of Ariha in the northwest Idlib province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says soldiers opened fire on protesters in the region, killing at least one person.

The 10-month crackdown on anti-government protests has turned more violent in recent months as defecting soldiers have taken up arms against the government.

Elaraby spoke after at least 11 members of the Arab League observer mission were injured by pro-Assad supporters earlier this week. Meanwhile, one observer quit the monitoring team, calling it a "farce," and activists say that 11 members are expected to quit the mission soon.

Foreign observers have been operating in Syria since December 26 to check President Bashar al-Assad's compliance with an Arab League plan to end his violent suppression of the uprising that began last year.

The United Nations and the United States say killings of protesters by Syrian security forces have intensified since the monitoring mission began. But on Friday Elaraby denied the charge in an interview with the Egyptian Al-Hayat television channel.

Meanwhile, Turkey's foreign minister said a Russian ship carrying "dangerous cargo" has arrived in Syria, after being temporarily held in Cyprus. Cypriot media reported on Wednesday that authorities had intercepted a vessel carrying ammunition from St. Petersburg in Russia to Syria during a fuel stop. Media reports said the ship was carrying up to 60 tons of ammunition and explosives.

The United Nations estimates at least 5,000 people have been killed in the uprising, many of them peaceful protesters attacked by Syrian security forces. Others have been killed in fighting between the Syrian military and the army defectors who have joined the rebellion in recent months.

Earlier this week, the first Western journalist was killed in Syria during a government-organized trip to Homs. Paris prosecutors said Friday that a preliminary investigation has been launched into the death of the France-2 Television journalist. Damascus has also said it will also investigate the death.

Some information for this Global Security report was provided by AP and AFP.

Nations Criticize UN Bullying

By Timothy Herrmann

NEW YORK, December 2 (C-FAM) Delegations fought back again last week against the lack of accountability and transparency of independent experts at the United Nations. Pakistan led the charge, proposing an amendment that called for experts to “exercise their functions independently and in full observance of their respective mandates.” Forty-eight countries supported the amendment, all of them increasingly frustrated by the tendency of many of the appointed independent experts to overstep the boundaries of their mandates.

The most recent example of an independent expert going beyond their mandate is Anand Grover, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health who claimed in his report last month that abortion is an international right. Individuals like Grover are appointed for their expertise in a particular area of human rights, but when they show significant bias in their reporting or claim that their opinions have international legal force, that expertise is called into question.

Independent experts are appointed, not elected, and receive minimal oversight at the UN. As a result, the incentive for many to go rogue is becoming commonplace and notoriously difficult to moderate. In October of 2009, the Special Rapporteur on Counter Terrorism Martin Scheinin left the scope of his mandate on terrorism to define gender as a “social construction.” In November of 2010 (A/65/162) the former Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, Vernor Muñoz, called into question the inviolable role of parents in the sexual education of their children. Given the frequency and controversial nature of these cases, Pakistan determined it as necessary to propose an amendment to remind delegations of the importance of independent experts remaining within their mandate.

For many countries, like Jamaica, the proposed amendment afforded a unique opportunity to speak out against the way their country in particular had been bullied by special rapporteurs in the past. The Jamaican delegate said a special rapporteur “publically accused” her of misrepresenting the views of her own country when reading a statement that was in fact prepared by her government. The Russian delegate also expressed support for the amendment, calling it an improvement to the resolution’s text.

Though member states can make formal complaints throughout the year about the questionable behavior of independent experts, the “persistent non-compliance of mandate holders” is only considered when their mandate comes up for renewal three years after appointment. Even then, the final decision on whether or not to extend the mandate of the special rapporteur is decided by the President of the Human Rights Council, not member states. In the case of some independent experts, like special representatives, only the Secretary General determines whether or not the expert in question is guilty of exceeding the boundaries of their mandate.

The opinion of these experts is neither binding on international law nor on the countries they criticize. Even when their opinions are referenced in a resolution, they maintain only the force of their personal opinion or of the internationally recognized norms that their opinions support. At the same time, many advocacy groups have attempted to use the independence of these experts in order to push their agenda at the UN. For Pakistan and many other countries, the time has come for this practice to end.

UN Official Scolded for Advocating Abortion as a Human Right

By Timothy Herrmann
NEW YORK, October 27 (C-FAM) At UN headquarters this week, governments dismissed a high level UN bureaucrat’s claim that abortion is a human right and went so far as to scold him for overstepping his mandate.

The Special Rapporteur for Health, Anand Grover, presented his report to delegates of the UN Third Committee linking unrestricted abortion with the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. He adamantly affirmed his intention to redefine the “right to health” in UNconventions and treaties to include abortion.   Read more here.

UN Bullies Irish on Abortion

Michael Kirke at Garvan Hill

At last we have a bit of good news showing that the Irish government can be persuaded to make a stand against the politically correct virus with which other states, endemically afflicted with this disease, seek to infect Irish society. On Monday, 10 October the busy-body UN Human Rights Council published its draft report on Ireland’s human rights record as part of the UN’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR). The report included recommendations from six countries for Ireland to bring in abortion.

Ireland’s Pro Life Campaign once again led the charge against this insidious interference and as an accredited NGO of the United Nations. It was represented by its legal consultant Caroline Simons in Geneva last week at the public session of the UN Human Rights Council prior to the publication of the draft report.

Also there was Irish Justice Minister, Alan Shatter, representing the Government and he was questioned on a wide range of human rights related issues which the UN deemed Ireland’s record was in some way suspect. Some 60 stakeholders and NGOs made submissions to the Universal Periodic Review. The Irish Government accepted many of the recommendations in the report but rejected all the calls relating to abortion.

Commenting on Monday’s UN Human Rights Council report on Ireland, Dr Ruth Cullen of the Pro Life Campaign said:

“The Pro Life Campaign welcomes the decision of the Government not to support recommendations from a number of countries for Ireland to introduce abortion. These calls for abortion legislation fly in the face of the UN’s own recent research showing that Ireland, without abortion, is a world leader in terms of safety for women in pregnancy.[1]

“Maternal safety in Ireland, it should be noted, is better than in the six countries pressurising Ireland to introduce abortion – Holland, Germany, Denmark, Slovenia, Norway and Spain.”

Since Mr. Shatter is someone who as an opposition politician was unambiguously in favour of Ireland introducing legislation for abortion in Ireland – and presumably personally still is – we can be very grateful that that the Irish Constitution still prohibits this legislation and will continue to do so until the people decide otherwise in a referendum. In reality, Ireland’s future generations, that is the unborn, will have to thank the Irish Pro-Life Campaign and its Trojan work to protect this provision of the Irish Constitution for their very existence. Hopefully they will be able to continue to dismantle and disarm the numerous Trojan Horses that the UN and others continue to assail them with.



[1] Report on Maternal Mortality, UN, UNFPA, World Health Organisation, 2010.

UN Report: Systematic Torture of Afghan Detainees

10 October 2011 – A new United Nations report released today cites evidence of the “systematic” torture and mistreatment of detainees in Afghan detention facilities, including of children, and provides recommendations which it hopes will spur the necessary reforms.

The report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is the result of extensive interviews from October 2010 to August 2011 of 379 pre-trial detainees and convicted prisoners at 47 facilities of the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and Afghan National Police (ANP) in 22 provinces.

The mission found “compelling” evidence that 125 detainees, or 46 per cent, of the 273 detainees interviewed who had been in NDS detention experienced interrogation techniques at the hands of NDS officials that constituted torture, and that torture is practiced “systematically” in a number of NDS detention facilities throughout Afghanistan,” states the report.

Read it all here.

United Nations: Abortion a "human right"

By Douglas A. Sylva, Ph.D.


NEW YORK, September 22 (C-FAM) While world attention may be focused on the UN General Assembly as it grapples with Palestinian statehood, the methodical drive by United Nations officials to promote legal abortion internationally goes on largely unnoticed. During the summer months, when press coverage of UN activities is minimal, the UN Secretariat released a report from the UN Human Rights Council calling on all nations to accept that women and girls must be granted access to legal abortion in order for them to fully enjoy their human rights.

The report, written by UN Special Rapporteur Anand Grover, links abortion on demand with the fundamental right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. According to Grover, “Criminal laws penalizing and restricting induced abortion are the paradigmatic examples of impermissible barriers to the realization of women’s right to health and must be eliminated.”

Read more here.

Obama, Activists Push Homosex Agenda at UN

NEW YORK, September 8 (C-FAM) Fresh off of what they hailed as a “historic” human rights victory, homosexual activists are expected to aggressively push their agenda in the UN General Assembly set to convene later this month.

Last June a small number of Member States of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva passed a non-binding resolution calling for a study to be commissioned by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights that will look into violence against homosexuals. This arguably weak resolution was immediately touted by the Obama Administration and others as a profound human rights victory. One senior adviser to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “Gay rights have finally arrived at the United Nations.” This small victory came after years of failed attempts to get “sexual orientation and gender identity” as new categories of non-discrimination in UN treaties.

“The problem with the resolution,” one close observer told the Friday Fax, “is not what it says, because it offers very little — a study — big deal. The problem is how it was presented to the world and what will come after. It is the camel’s nose under the tent and the rest of the camel is sure to follow.”

UN delegations from traditional countries are girding for what they expect will be a similar attempt in the General Assembly this fall. Homosexual advocates have wised up over the years. Where once they attempted to get the UN to agree that sexual orientation is the same as freedom of religion and other widely agreed-upon human rights, now they focus on smaller even tiny advances. And this is how human rights are now formed at the UN. Start small and blow it all out of proportion and hope no one notices.

Once the General Assembly accepts a study or a commission or anything related to the homosexual agenda, no matter how small, advocates will begin announcing that a new human right has been achieved. International agencies, lawyers, law professors, and lawmakers around the world will then advance this new human right. They will focus on violence against homosexuals and advance quickly to false claims that governments will come to believe and act on.

Much of this comes from a document called the Yogyakarta Principles written by a group of human rights advocates that calls for incorporating homosexuality into almost all categories of widely accepted human rights. The document has taken on the sheen of nearly holy writ in some quarters though it is only the opinions of activists.

It is unclear if homosexual advocates have the votes in the General Assembly. In 2008 the French governments initiated a statement calling for sexual orientation and gender identity to be new categories of nondiscrimination enforceable in international law. They got 65 countries to sign the statement and even came within a hair’s breadth of getting the Bush Administration to sign on. At the time, a coalition of developing world countries issued a counter statement that garnered 60 nations in support.

Even so, if a vote were held today calling for a new human right to homosexuality, the vote would be close and would likely fail. This is why advocates will ask the General Assembly for merely for a “study” of violence against homosexuals and why senior diplomats will oppose it.

From here.
 
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UN's Flawed Fertility Figures

NEW YORK, August 25 (C-FAM) The UN has reversed a decade of speculation about a demographic winter in the West, and now says that every country will achieve replacement fertility by 2100 resulting in a global population of 10 billion. The problem is there is no basis for their turnabout.

UN agencies are hailing new numbers as evidence of overpopulation in the developing world and vindication of decades of anti-natal policies in the West, but the scientific basis of the latest UN forecasts is slim.

The most significant change in the UN’s new numbers is an increase in the predicted convergence rate from 1.85 children per woman, below replacement, to 2.1, about replacement fertility.

While the UN claims there is consensus on the matter, demographers have long argued that there is no evidence to support the assumption that global fertility will ever converge, and no basis for the assertion that all nations go through three phases of demographic change: from declining birth rates where most developing nations are today, to below replacement rates experienced by all developed countries except the US, and finally to recovery at near replacement rates which a few Northern European countries have achieved.

Adherents to the recovery hypothesis say that the dip in European fertility rates may be due to women’s delaying childbearing. But as a new RAND study points out, “changes in birth timing can affect short-term birthrates” but “the effects are mild, and the result of delay can be permanent for the population as a whole even if not permanent for any one woman.”

In terms of youth 15-24 years old entering the workforce or military, the new figures would mean that India’s much-anticipated demographic advantage over China would be curtailed. India would have 75 million fewer youth by 2050, and 324 million fewer by 2100, while China would gain 26 million more than previously expected.

Germany’s share of youth in 2050 would rise from a projected 8.5 percent to 10 percent of its population according to the new UN forecast, more than doubling the number of youth previously predicted by 2100. Likewise, the number of Russian youth would be more than twice existing projections, and Japan’s share of youth would jump from just 7.7 percent in 2050 to 10.4 percent in 2100.

In sharp contrast, governments remain pessimistic. Recent reports from the European Commission and the Japanese government, for example, assume that fertility will remain near today’s levels which are about 1.3 in Japan, and 1.4 in Germany.

To achieve the dramatically new fertility predictions, the UN Population Division created a “probabilistic model” that uses high capacity computing to run 100,000 of fertility scenarios for each country.

While this new model gives a patina of greater scientific accuracy, it is based upon an arbitrary and unsubstantiated fertility rate. Just because demographers now have the capability of churning out many thousands of scenarios for each country studied does not mean the result is scientific.

Policy analysts would do well to reject the UN one-size-fits-all fertility projections and rely instead on data accounting for the various national factors contributing to desired family size.

 From here.

Related reading:  UN Population Data and Global Power