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GENEVA / ZEID HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
STORY: GENEVA / ZEID HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
TRT: 4:50
SOURCE: UNTV CH
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS
DATELINE: 26 FEBRUARY 2018, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
1. Exterior, Palais des Nations
2. Wide shot, Human Rights Council room
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“May I begin by welcoming the Security Council’s unanimous decision in relation to a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, which came after intense lobbying by our Secretary-General and others, and we applaud Sweden and Kuwait for their leadership in the Security Council on this. We insist on its full implementation without delay. However, we have every reason to remain cautious, as airstrikes on eastern Ghouta continue this morning. Resolution 2401 must be viewed against a backdrop of seven years of failure to stop the violence: seven years of unremitting and frightful mass killing.”
4. Pan, High Commissioner
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Eastern Ghouta, the other besieged areas in Syria; Ituri and the Kasais in the DRC; Taiz in Yemen; Burundi; Northern Rakhine in Myanmar have become some of the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times, because not enough was done, early and collectively, to prevent the rising horrors.”
6. Med shot, delegats
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“The responsibility for the continuation of so much pain lies with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. So long as the veto is used by them to block any unity of action, when it is needed the most, when it could reduce the extreme suffering of innocent people, then it is they – the permanent members – who must answer before the victims.”
8. Close up, delegate
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“France has shown commendable leadership among the P5 in championing a code of conduct on the use of veto; the United Kingdom has also joined the initiative, now backed by over 115 countries. It is time, for the love of mercy, that China, Russia and the United States, join them and end the pernicious use of the veto.”
10. Med shot, delegates
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Some States view human rights as of secondary value – far less significant than focusing on GDP growth or geopolitics. While it is one of the three pillars of the UN, it is simply not treated as the equal of the other two. The size of the budget is telling enough, and the importance accorded to it often seems to be in the form of lip service only. Many in New York view it condescendingly as that weak, emotional, Geneva-centred, pillar -- not serious enough for some of the hardcore realists in the UN Security Council.”
10. Wide shot, podium
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations:
“Today oppression is fashionable again; the security state is back, and fundamental freedoms are in retreat in every region of the world. Shame is also in retreat. Xenophobes and racists in Europe are casting off any sense of embarrassment – like Hungary's Viktor Orban who earlier this month said "we do not want our colour... to be mixed in with others". Do they not know what happens to minorities in societies where leaders seek ethnic, national or racial purity? When an elected leader blames the Jews for having perpetrated the Holocaust, as was recently done in Poland, and we give this disgraceful calumny so little attention, the question must be asked: have we all gone completely mad?”
12. Wide shot, delegates
The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, has welcomed the Security Council’s unanimous decision related to a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, however he says that there is still reason to be cautious as airstrikes continue.
Speaking at the opening of the 37th regular session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, the High Commissioner said: “Second to those who are criminally responsible – those who kill and those who maim – the responsibility for the continuation of so much pain lies with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. So long as the veto is used by them to block any unity of action, when it is needed the most, when it could reduce the extreme suffering of innocent people, then it is they – the permanent members – who must answer before the victims.” He said that France has shown commendable leadership among the P5 in championing a code of conduct on the use of veto; the United Kingdom has also joined the initiative, now backed by over 115 countries. And he stressed that: “It is time, for the love of mercy, that China, Russia and the United States, join them and end the pernicious use of the veto.”
Zeid raised concerns that some states view human rights as of secondary value: “While it is one of the three pillars of the UN, it is simply not treated as the equal of the other two. The size of the budget is telling enough, and the importance accorded to it often seems to be in the form of lip service only. Many in New York view it condescendingly as that weak, emotional, Geneva-centred, pillar -- not serious enough for some of the hardcore realists in the UN Security Council.”
Addressing delegates, the High Commissioner also warned that oppression has become fashionable again and that fundamental freedoms have been in retreat in every region of the world: “Shame is also in retreat. Xenophobes and racists in Europe are casting off any sense of embarrassment – like Hungary's Viktor Orban who earlier this month said ‘we do not want our colour... to be mixed in with others’. Do they not know what happens to minorities in societies where leaders seek ethnic, national or racial purity? When an elected leader blames the Jews for having perpetrated the Holocaust, as was recently done in Poland, and we give this disgraceful calumny so little attention, the question must be asked: have we all gone completely mad?”
He criticized the lack of preventive action by the international community to stop human rights violations in Eastern Ghouta, besieged areas in Syria, Ituri and Kasais in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Taiz in Yemen, Burundi and Northern Rakhine in Myanmar, which have become some of the most prolific slaughterhouses of humans in recent times because not enough has been done to prevent the rising horrors.”
In closing, High Commissioner Zeid said that in the 70th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, human rights should be defended more vigorously than ever before.
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