IranPress/America: The outgoing UN human rights commissioner Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said in an interview with the Guardian that the US President Donald Trump administration’s lack of concern about human rights marked a distinct break with previous administrations, and that his own rhetoric aimed at minorities and at the press was redolent of two of the worst eras of the 20th century, the run-up to the two world wars.
Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, a Jordanian prince and diplomat, is stepping down this month as UN high commissioner for human rights after deciding not to stand for a second four-year term, in the face of a waning commitment among world powers to fighting abuses.
“We began to see a campaign against the media … that could have potentially, and still can, set in motion a chain of events which could quite easily lead to harm being inflicted on journalists just going about their work and potentially some self-censorship,” Zeid said. “And in that context, it’s getting very close to incitement to violence.”
The outgoing UN human rights commissioner also singled out the US president’s repeated designation of the press as “the enemy of the people”.
“The US creates a demonstration effect, which then is picked up by other countries where the leadership tends to to be more authoritarian [in] character or aspires to be authoritarian,” he said.
Also on July in Geneva, the top U.N. human rights official called on the United States to halt its "unconscionable" policy of forcibly separating children from migrant parents. Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said as he opened a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva: "the thought that any state would seek to deter parents by inflicting such abuse on children is unconscionable".
“When language is used in a way that focuses on groups of people who have traditionally suffered a great deal from bigotry and prejudice and chauvinism, it harked back to a period not too long ago in the 20th century when feelings were stoked, directed at a vulnerable group for the sake of political gain,” he said, adding that he was referring in particular to the 1930s and the period before the first world war.
“The Trump administration seems to have separated itself from previous administrations in its upholding of human rights globally,” Zeid said. The administration’s failure to appoint an ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, before withdrawing from the council altogether, he added, was “illustrative of the lack of any deep commitment to the human rights”.
“It tells me more about the weakening influence of the western powers that they could not secure nine votes for a briefing on human rights in Syria,” he said. “If you are discussing Syria in the security council and you are not discussing gross human rights violations, what are you discussing? The latest arts and crafts fair in Damascus? It’s ridiculous.”
Zeid said he came to the decision early on in his tenure to speak out on human rights abuses irrespective of the political circumstances. He attributed his approach in part to his first major foreign mission as a UN official in his early 30s, when he witnessed first hand UN dithering and timidity during the fall of the Muslim enclave of Srebrenica, and the subsequent slaughter of some 8,000 men and boys by Bosnian Serb troops.
“I would be very suspicious of any commissioner seeking a second term because I’d wonder what deals are being struck and if they’d been struck they’ve been struck on the back of victims,” he said.
