U.N. Human Rights Council - The African Mirror

Feb

2024

Security Council ‘perhaps fatally’ undermined by Gaza, Ukraine deadlock, says UN chief

UNITED Nations chief Antonio Guterres deplored the U.N. Security Council's deadlock over the Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, saying divisions among its members had "perhaps fatally" undermined its authority. Speaking at the opening of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Guterres said the U.N. Security Council often found itself "unable to act on the most significant peace and security issues of our time". "The Council's lack of unity on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and on Israel's military operations in Gaza following the horrific terror attacks by Hamas on 7 October, has severely – perhaps fatally – undermined its…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Exclusive: Ethiopia seeks to end U.N.-ordered probe into Tigray war abuses

NEWS

EMMA FARGE and GABRIELLE TÉTRAULT-FARBER ETHIOPIA is courting support for a motion to cut short a U.N.-mandated inquiry into atrocities in the Tigray war, five diplomats said, in a move that could divide African and Western nations. The Ethiopian government's two-year conflict with forces in the northern Tigray region ended last November with thousands dead and millions uprooted. Both sides blamed each other for widely-documented atrocities, including massacres, rape and detentions without trial. Though the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council has never ended a probe before its mandate, Addis Ababa has circulated a draft version of a resolution calling for the Tigray inquiry to…

Mar

2023

By The African Mirror

Congo president says unrest in east could disrupt elections

NEWS

DEMOCRATIC Republic of Congo's President Felix Tshisekedi said that a conflict with rebels in the east of the country could disrupt preparations for general elections scheduled for December 20. Congo's electoral commission started registering voters on February 17 in North Kivu province, parts of which are occupied by the M23 rebel group, a Tutsi-led militia that has been waging an offensive against Congolese troops for almost a year. The fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, raising concerns about the state's ability to prepare for the parliamentary and presidential elections later this year. "The persistence of the war in the east…

Jul

2022

By The African Mirror

UN rights mission finds ‘probable’ mass graves in Libya

NEWS

EMMA FARGE and ANGUS MCDOWALL A U.N.-appointed mission to Libya said there are "probable mass graves" yet to be investigated, possibly as many as 100, in a town where hundreds of bodies have already been found, and it urged Tripoli to keep searching. The report to be submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council this week details how a militia run by seven brothers executed and imprisoned hundreds of people between 2016-2020, sometimes keeping them in tiny oven-like structures called "the boxes" which were set alight during interrogations. The evidence of kidnappings, murder and torture in Tarhouna, uncovered by the…

Apr

2022

By The African Mirror

Ethiopia fails at U.N. to block funding for independent abuse inquiry

NEWS

MICHELLE NICHOLS ETHIOPIA failed at the United Nations in its bid to block funding for an independent investigation into abuses in the country's conflict, garnering just 27 yes votes, while 66 countries opposed the move and 39 countries abstained. The vote was in the 193-member U.N. General Assembly's budget committee. The budget committee then voted to approve funding for the inquiry established by the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva in December to collect evidence and identify those responsible for abuses, with a view to future prosecutions. Ethiopia has vowed not to cooperate. Ethiopian diplomat Lemlem Fiseha Minale told the…

Mar

2022

By The African Mirror

UN rights forum picks ex-ICC prosecutor to lead Ethiopia abuses investigation

NEWS

THE U.N. Human Rights Council has picked the former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to lead a panel investigating violations of human rights in the conflict in northern Ethiopia, the council said. Ethiopian federal troops went to war with rebellious Tigrayan forces in November 2020. Since the war erupted, Reuters has reported atrocities by all sides, which the parties to the fighting have denied. The council voted in December to establish an independent investigative commission, to look into alleged violations by all sides and to identify perpetrators with a view to accountability. Fatou Bensouda, a Gambian national who…

Feb

2021

By The African Mirror

White supremacy a “transnational threat”, U.N. chief warns

WORLD

UNITED Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned yesterday that white supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are becoming a "transnational threat" and have exploited the coronavirus pandemic to boost their support. Addressing the U.N. Human Rights Council, Guterres said the danger of hate-driven groups was growing daily. "White supremacy and neo-Nazi movements are more than domestic terror threats. They are becoming a transnational threat," he told the Geneva forum. Without naming states, Guterres added: "Today, these extremist movements represent the number one internal security threat in several countries." In the United States, racial tensions simmered during the turbulent four-year presidency of Donald Trump.…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Pandemic sharpens ‘battle for the soul’ of United Nations between U.S. and China

WORLD

MICHELLE NICHOLS LONG-simmering tensions between the United States and China have hit boiling point at the United Nations over the coronavirus pandemic, spotlighting Beijing's bid for greater multilateral influence in a challenge to Washington's traditional leadership. Chinese President Xi Jinping has accelerated his U.N. power play as President Donald Trump's disregard for international cooperation led to the United States quitting global deals on climate and Iran and leaving the U.N. Human Rights Council and the World Health Organization, diplomats say. "There's definitely, in my mind, a battle for the soul of the U.N. going on," said a senior European diplomat,…