Some of you may have been following our government’s attempt to ensure that any new Human Rights Council in the United Nations does not contain human rights abusers.
Particularly, the United States wants “to make sure the procedures for electing members and for disqualifying the most bloodthirsty regimes in the world are established so that we turn a page in the history of the Commission on Human Rights….”
As an article in today’s New York Times points out,
The world’s primary human rights body–the UN Human Rights Commission–has become discredited in recent years because repressive states have regularly gained membership to block attempts to curb abuses….
… China regularly defeated efforts to even discuss its record. Critics note that Libya–widely criticized for its poor human rights record–recently chaired the commission and that, in the spring of 2004, the commission declined to take tough action against Sudan despite reports of rampant abuses by government-sponsored forces in the western province of Darfur. Sudan was elected to the commission soon after that session.
Meanwhile, here at home, Governor Rod Blagojevich (D), the Kofi Annan of Illinois, has appointed an aide to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan to the Governor’s Commission on Discrimination and Hate Crimes.
The appointee, Claudette Marie Muhammad, “Farrakhan’s chief of protocol and director of community outreach,” was appointed last August, but
she drew no public attention until she invited other commissioners to a Farrakhan speech last month. Some commissioners began complaining of her presence on the panel, and the criticism increased after Farrakhan’s speech Sunday included references to “Hollywood Jews” promoting homosexuality and “other filth.”
Four commission members have resigned rather than serve with her, and both Jewish and homosexual advocacy groups have called on her to renounce Farrakhan’s bigotry or resign, “while black lawmakers defended her right to serve.”
And what does the governor say?
“I strongly disagree with the things Minister Farrakhan said. They’re wrong and hateful, and they’re harmful,” Blagojevich said. “I also oppose guilt by association. Ms. Muhammad didn’t say those things.”
Actually, I’m not so sure there’s anything so wrong, or at least surprising, about Ms. Muhammad’s appointment. After all, it is the all but official position of the Democratic Party these days that discrimination isn’t discrimination unless it is targeted at one of a small number of approved groups, and neither whites, Jews, nor, most of the time, homosexuals qualify.
