|
Blind Chinese
Dissident Wins Courage Award
at UN Watch's Geneva Summit for Human
Rights
Human Rights
Heroes Assemble Ahead of UN Rights Session
GENEVA, Feb. 26 –
Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist, received the 2014 Geneva Summit
Courage Award yesterday from an international assembly of human rights groups,
where dissidents shared harrowing testimonies of human rights abuses ahead of
Monday's gathering of foreign ministers at the United Nations Human Rights
Council.
Hundreds of dissidents, activists, diplomats and journalists
gathered from around the world yesterday for the 2014 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and
Democracy, the annual civil society forum that
works to place urgent situations on the UN agenda.
The summit was
organized by the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, supported by a cross-regional coalition of 20 NGO
co-sponsors.
UN Watch
chairman Alfred H. Moses presented the award to Chen, a former political
prisoner who escaped house arrest in 2012, "for inspiring the world with his
extraordinary courage in the defense of truth, justice and human
rights."
|
MEDIA
IMPACT
Media from around the globe have broadcast
the speakers' human rights testimonies,
including:
Moreover, the Ottawa
Citizen has just dedicated a major editorial to the summit here.
|
Chen,
who has been blind since childhood, taught himself law and exposed forced
abortions and sterilizations in his native Shandong Province before his
imprisonment by local authorities.
In a drama covered on front pages
worldwide, Chen escaped house arrest in China in May 2012 and sought refuge at
the U.S. embassy in Beijing before moving to the United States.
"People who live in democracy and
freedom don't realize how important they are to them, but people who are
oppressed understand that democracy and freedom are very important," he
said.
Dissidents or members of their families from countries including
Syria, Iran and Cuba were present at Tuesday's
conference.
With the world's spotlight trained on North
Korea following a stinging UN report into the regime's mass atrocities,
prison camp guard turned human rights activist Ahn Myong Chul
explained that 90 percent of inmates don't even know the reason for their
incarceration, punished for "crimes of their grandfathers."
Also in
attendance was the aunt of Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo
Lopez, arrested by security forces on February 18 after a series of
protests brought tens of thousands onto the streets of
Julieta Lopez read out a statement from her from
nephew.
"Only dictatorships send dissidents to prison and if the
government puts dissidents in prison, they accept openly that Venezuela is a
dictatorship. The emperor has no clothes," she said.
 Naghmeh Abedini (left), wife of jailed Iranian-American pastor Saeed
Abedini, says she believes now is a good time for the United States to
pressure Iran to release her husband, who was arrested for teaching
Christianity.
"At present my husband is suffering
from internal injuries that resulted from beatings, but the Iranian government
is denying him the necessary medical care needed to treat those injuries,"
Abedini told the conference.
"Freedom of
religion, including the right to change one's religion, is a God-given right of
all people, including the Iranian people. No human law should infringe upon that
right."
 "We must make sure China remains
accountable for its actions. They sit proudly on the UN Human Rights Council, on
the Security Council, and dictate how Syria should deal with its situation," said
Tenzin Dhardon Sharling, the youngest member of Tibet’s parliament in exile.
She also criticized the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights, saying, “Navi Pillay ends her second term in
September and still has not visited Tibet.”
“During Mubarak’s time  women were only mentioned to decorate
the regime, said Egyptian women's rights activist Dalia Ziada, who heads Cairo's Ibn Khaldun Center
for Development Studies..
"Under the Muslim Brotherhood, laws
were made for early marriage for girls and genital
mutilation.”
Conference organizers said
that one invited speaker from Cuba, human rights activist Jorge Luis García
Pérez, known as "Antúnez," was brutally arrested after State security forces
raided his home on February 5, and barred from leaving Cuba to attend the Geneva
event.
 “I have devoted these past 25 years to work in
common cause with others for the freedom of political prisoners, who represent
hope and inspiration for their country, for their people, and for humanity as a
whole, said
Canadian parliamentarian and human rights advocate
Irwin Cotler (above), in his opening address to the
conference, offering a model on how to defend dissidents behind
bars.
“I’ve learned from these political prisoners…
we must speak on behalf of those who cannot be heard; bear witness on behalf of
those who cannot testify; act and advocate on behalf of those who have put not
only their livelihood, but their very lives on the line."
"We will come out of the shadows of darkness into
the light of freedom.”
In the final session, UN Watch executive
director Hillel Neuer, who chaired the summit, welcomed the fact that
the UN Human Rights Council was expected next month to adopt resolutions on
Syria, North Korea and Iran.
 However, Neuer regretted that the council was
planning to turn a blind eye to most of the country situations addressed at the
session.
Despite testimony from activists and
victims about abuses by Egypt and Cambodia, and about slavery in Mauritania,
none of these countries is yet on the council's agenda, though they should be,
he said.
And despite hearing from victims of gross
violations of human rights from China, Cuba, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia,
Vietnam and Venezuela—each of these countries is a recently-elected member of
the 47-nation council, said Neuer, and the regimes enjoy
impunity.
QADDAFI RAPES EXPOSED AS UN RIGHTS COUNCIL
HEARD FROM "QADDAFI PRIZE" FOUNDER
Le Monde's Annick Cojean, author of the book
"Gaddafi's Harem," described
to the hundreds of Geneva Summit delegates how the Libyan dictator raped
thousands of women and girls on a systematic basis over four decades.
 Yet across the street today, the UN Human
Rights Council was addressed (photo right) by Jean Ziegler, one of its
longest-serving officials, who in 1989 created the Moammar
Qaddafi Human Rights Prize, an award he received himself at a 2002 ceremony
in Tripoli, Libya.
Ziegler, who for 11 years denied receiving the
award until video proving otherwise was released by UN Watch in September, attacked
the United States for human rights abuses, and strongly praised the Cuban
government. Cuba created Ziegler's original UN post in the year
2000.
|
