Jean Ziegler And The Khaddafi Human Rights Prize
"The Khadafi Prize? How could I have created it? It's absurd." —JEAN ZIEGLER, Le Matin, April 24, 2006 SWITZERLAND'S NOMINEE TO THE UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL AND THE MOAMMAR KHADDAFI HUMAN RIGHTS PRIZE A Report by UN Watch June 20, 2006 During the next two weeks, as well as over the next year, the eyes of the world—especially the eyes of those whose human rights are denied—will be turned toward the United Nations' new Human Rights Council. Great hopes have been raised. Among the Council's expected actions next week will be the appointment and renewal of its human rights experts, known as the Special Procedures. Many of these experts do excellent and important work. Regrettably, however, one of the candidates for election as an expert is a man who has routinely subverted the language of human rights to serve the interests of dictators like Moammar Khaddafi. This report—based on numerous documents (attached here), including official records of the canton of Geneva, UN materials and international news sources-reveals the leading role of Jean Ziegler, despite his denials and non-disclosures, in founding the Moammar Khaddafi Human Rights Prize, his ongoing relationship with the Prize organization in Geneva, and his own receipt of the Prize. The report also reveals how a group of interconnected organizations—co-founded and co-managed by Mr. Ziegler—have awarded the Prize and its accompanying funding to notorious racists and human rights violators, including convicted French Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy. The human rights record of Colonel Khaddafi's regime is routinely rated by Freedom House as one of the "Worst of the Worst." Notwithstanding Libya's recent renunciation of weapons of mass destruction in return for international favor, Khaddafi continues to rule by fiat, denying freedom of the press, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, and other basic civil rights and liberties. Security forces have the power to pass sentence without trial. Arbitrary arrest and torture are commonplace. Five Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian doctor have been sentenced to death by firing squad, under trumped-up charges that they contaminated 400 children with HIV/AIDS. International appeals have been rejected. If one of the new UN Human Rights Council's first actions was to be the election of an expert with substantial ties to Libya—the country whose notorious 2003 election as chair of its predecessor helped to bring about the latter's demise—the harm to the Council's credibility, legitimacy and effectiveness might be irreparable.
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November 2017 -
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