Muslims In UNHRC Stop Short Of Saying THE WEST Is Apartheid

I guess the West got off easy. Good thing we have the US in the United Nations Human Rights Council to keep these sorts of things in check:

Muslim states said Wednesday that what they call "islamophobia" is sweeping the West and its media and demanded that the United Nations take tougher action against it.

Delegates from Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Egypt, told the United Nations Human Rights Council that treatment of Muslims in Western countries amounted to racism and discrimination and must be fought.

"People of Arab origin face new forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance and experience discrimination and marginalisation," an Egyptian delegate said, according to a U.N. summary.

And Pakistan, speaking for the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC), said the council's special investigator into religious freedom should look into such racism "especially in Western societies."

Yeah, especially.

Not surprisingly, the resolution is expected to pass--after all, what else would you expect from the UN Human Rights Club:

The countries of the majority group, which also include India and Brazil, ensure that its members and their friends outside the council -- such as Sri Lanka and Iran -- are shielded from any serious criticism of their rights record.

The group ensures that council fire is largely aimed at Israel over its occupation of Palestinian territories and treatment of people living there as well as on the Israeli blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza.

True, on Tuesday--after much wrangling--Norway was allowed to read a statement on behalf of 56 members of the UN, criticizing Iran on the issue of Human rights. But while the US claimed this as a victory for the Iranian people (and justification for US membership in the UNHRC), only a quarter of UN members actually backed it--and only 14 of them members of the UNHRC.

This is what one has to settle for as a victory in the UN Human Rights Club.

And it is a victory that may never get repeated:

"The Western group knows it could never get such a resolution passed in this council, and this is the only way they have of fighting back," said Roy Brown, long-time chief representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union.

Brown said the loophole was likely to be closed in a coming review of the council's activity since it was launched in 2006 to replace a discredited predecessor.

The US will have to find a different excuse to stay in the UNHRC.

Technorati Tag: UNHRC and Islamophobia.