As Libya, Al Qaeda and the UN fly by - UPDATE

The UN General Assembly voted unanimously today (March 1st) to suspend the Qaddafi regime's seat on the Human Rights Council.

Praise God.

Details . . . >>

 

(Left to right) Hillel Neuer - Executive Director, UN Watch

Mohamed Eljahmi, Libyan Dissident
Tom Melia - Deputy Executive Director, Freedom House

February 21, 2011: Working closely with Libyan dissident Mohamed Eljahmi — who sounds the alarm on massive atrocities being committed by the Qaddafi regime — UN Watch spearheads an international appeal by 70 human rights groups to remove Libya [from the UN Human Rights Council].

The plea for UN action is covered around the world.

Three days later, the EU requests a special session of the Human Rights

Council, but fails to contest Libya’s council membership.

UN Watch urges world leaders to block UNHRC resolution praising Libya's human rights record

Report hailing Gaddafi's human rights record scheduled for adoption in

current session

GENEVA, February 28, 2011 -- UN Watch, which heads the Global NGO Campaign

to Remove Libya from the UN Human Rights Council, called on US Secretary of

State Hillary Clinton and EU foreign minister Catherine Ashton, who are

today addressing the 47-nation body in Geneva, as well as UN rights chief

Navi Pillay, to urge the council president to cancel a planned resolution

praising Libya's human rights record, scheduled to be adopted in the current

session.

Despite having just voted to suspend Libya from its ranks (expected to be

finalized by the UNGA tomorrow), the UN Human Rights Council, according to

the agenda of its current session, is planning to "consider and adopt the

final outcome of the review of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya." According to the

council's timetable, the lengthy report hailing Libya's human rights record

will be presented on March 18, and then adopted by the council at the end of

the month.

And a grand terror network sees itself becoming increasingly irrelevant, as Scott Shane writes in Sunday's New York Times :

For nearly two decades, the leaders of Al Qaeda have denounced the Arab world’s dictators as heretics and puppets of the West and called for their downfall. Now, people in country after country have risen to topple their leaders — and Al Qaeda has played absolutely no role.

In fact, the motley opposition movements that have appeared so suddenly and proved so powerful have shunned the two central tenets of the Qaeda credo: murderous violence and religious fanaticism. The demonstrators have used force defensively, treated Islam as an afterthought and embraced democracy, which is anathema to Osama bin Laden and his followers.

So for Al Qaeda — and perhaps no less for the American policies that have been built around the threat it poses — the democratic revolutions that have gripped the world’s attention present a crossroads.

Will the terrorist network shrivel slowly to irrelevance? Or will it find a way to exploit the chaos produced by political upheaval and the disappointment that will inevitably follow hopes now raised so high?