YouSaid · the spoken record

Al-Hussein

lines on the record: 193
first: 2000-10-04
most recent: 2017-12-11
sittings or episodes: 23
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“There have been hundreds of cases of arbitrary arrests and detention in the past month alone, targeting members of the opposition, journalists, human rights defenders and their families, people attending the funerals of those who have been killed and inhabitants of neighbourhoods perceived to be supportive of the opposition. I am glad to note that the intervention of my Office, in cooperation with the Burundian authorities, resulted in the release of 340 detainees last month. However, people who express divergent views from the Government continue to live in a climate ofintense fear. The abduction and murder just three days ago of 25-year-old Welly Nzitonda, son of a well-known human rights defender, Pierre Claver Mbonimpa, is one very recent and painful example. During an attempt on his life in August, Mr.”
2015-11-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7553 (2015) · source
“Mr. Al-Hussein: I regret to report my deepening concern with regard to the increasingly grave human rights crisis in Burundi. In addition to the rising death toll, I must alert the Security Council to warning signs of further escalation, including potentially very serious regional repercussions. The country is at another crucial and extremely dangerous tipping point, and I believe that Member States and the Council can intervene effectively to prevent the repetition of past horrors. Within Burundi, and particularly in Bujumbura, there have been increasing numbers of extrajudicial killings documented in recent months, including multiple alleged political assassinations. At least 240 people have been killed since protests began in April, with bodies dumped on the streets on almost a nightly basis.”
2015-11-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7553 (2015) · source
“I ask Council members to bring to bear all possible influence to restore a sense of responsibility among key actors in Burundi. Accountability for all gross human rights violations, including those that have occurred over the past six months, must be ensured. Justice must be served and reason must prevail so that Burundi can return to the path of the rule of law and democracy, stability, confidence and peace, including through elections that are inclusive, transparent and fair. The Arusha Agreement sought to reconstitute a society in which differences, whether political or communal, could be accommodated, and in which the protection of the State could be counted as secure for all. That is the path of development and hope, and it is Burundi's future.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“The Secretary General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, has noted the risk that what has, to date, been primarily a political crisis could escalate to a level that would pose a high risk of atrocity crimes. The nightmares of Burundi's recent past are close at hand, and among them we must count the massive impact of past episodes of violence on regional development and security. The people of Burundi and the region deserve far better than these recurring cycles of impunity, suffering and destruction. They have a right to go about their lives peacefully, in freedom, equality and dignity, without fear, and with equitable access to their country's many resources and opportunities. They look to the Council to exert its authority to ensure a speedy political solution to this dreadful crisis.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“In a concerted effort to rebuild social institutions that can effectively mediate differences and address grievances, the international community and regional and national actors came together in Arusha 15 years ago to rebuild an architecture of sustainable peace, with emphasis on the rule of law, observance of human rights, access to effective judicial and other institutions, and participatory democratic governance. Slowly, the country has inched back to greater confidence, more openness and far more inclusion. Today, however, that effort is in peril. After years of deep work to weave together the fabric of society, communities are reverting to fear.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“The humanitarian impact of the crisis now includes a cholera outbreak among refugees in Tanzania. Since the 1960s, repeated cycles of uncontrollable violence have devastated Burundi. Although all the country's communities speak the same language and have for centuries lived together in the same hills and communes, these recurring spasms have, in recent decades, laid down a pattern of mistrust, bitterness and pre-emptive violence.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“A severe crackdown on independent media has led to the closure of most private media and radio stations, with some being burned down. Large numbers ofjournalists have fled Burundi for fear of reprisals, as have many human rights defenders. Recently we have also seen key members of the President's own political party and Government fleeing the country. Frequent grenade attacks in public neighbourhoods and a campaign of intimidation of ordinary people by Imbonerakure militia members have created an atmosphere that is grim with fear and panic. Many hard-won gains in inclusive services, institutions and freedoms for the public are also breaking down. Numerous schools have closed, and, in any case, lack of security prevents schoolchildren from attending.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“Some security personnel and Imbonerakure militia members have also been killed. Contrary to some recent reports, the massive outflows of refugees appear to have been sparked not by rumour but by precise and targeted campaigns of intimidation and terror. Refugees interviewed by my Office in the Democratic Republic ofthe Congo, Rwanda and Tanzania continue to refer to the Imbonerakure militia as the main threat, but some have also stated that militants from other groups are also employing Violence - a new and disturbing development. My Office has also documented over 300 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention of demonstrators, human rights defenders, political opponents and journalists, some of whom have since been released. We have noted numerous cases of torture and other forms of ill-treatment in detention.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“All political parties, the President of the Republic, the police and the military should place the well-being of their country above their own political ambitions and interests and take the path of peace and rule of law. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights field office - which we have reinforced - has documented dozens of killings in the past two months, most of them shootings of demonstrators and human rights defenders by members of the Imbonerakure militia and security forces. I draw the Council's attention in particular to the assassination, on 26 May, of Zedi Feruzi, a vocal opposition leader who opposed a third term for the President, and to the attempted assassination of the wife of Agathon Rwasa, another leading political opponent.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“Burundians appear to be braced for an explosion of the murderous Violence, which has so frequently engulfed the country. I travelled to Burundi in April and met with the President and top officials of the Government, the Constitutional Court and other key bodies. I noted then the widespread and alarming violence attributed to the Imbonerakure militia, which has been linked to the President's political party. Immediate action must be taken to curtail those assaults and to stem incitement to Violence and hatred. In line with the recommendation made during the third emergency summit of Heads of State of the East African Community on the situation in Burundi, I urge the Government to disarm the Imbonerakure militia immediately.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“We have also received reports of extrajudicial killings. To date, these violations have not been investigated, prosecuted or sanctioned. Apparently determined to ignore every warning signal, the Government pushed through parliamentary and local elections on 29 June, despite pleas by the Secretary-General, the East African Community, the African Union, the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region and multiple other international actors, including the most recent international team of facilitators, for a delay to allow space for dialogue and inclusion. The elections were boycotted by opposition parties and took place in an atmosphere that was far from conducive to a free, fair and inclusive vote. There have been outbreaks of violence, including small arms and grenade attacks, and tension is palpable.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“The crisis arising from President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term of office has undermined a decade of steady progress in building democratic institutions and the precious gains achieved in the sense of a common national community. In the past six months, members of opposition parties, civil society activists and media figures who called for the President to respect the Arusha Agreement and the Constitution by standing down after 10 years in office have been targeted for intimidation, severe harassment and arbitrary detention. Peaceful protests have been met with unwarranted use of force, including lethal force, in violation of Burundi's obligation under national and international law to guarantee the right to freedom of assembly. Demonstrators have been imprisoned and subjected to torture and ill-treatment.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“Mr. Al Hussein: I thank the Council for giving me this opportunity to voice my concern about the deterioration of the human rights situation in Burundi. An escalating pattern of politically motivated violence, coupled with the country's history of recurring bloodshed and atrocities, should alert us to the potential for serious crisis. Already, more than 145,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries, and this movement has increased drastically in recent days. As they pack the few belongings they can carry and abandon their lands and homes, what the people of Burundi are telling us is that they fear their country is on the brink of devastating Violence. The risk to human life and to regional stability and development is high.”
2015-07-09 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7482 (2015) · source
“It is a trauma from which we could still learn, with great remorse. For many of us who served with the United Nations in the former Yugoslavia, Srebrenica will remain for many years the heart that breaks daily.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“Had that been the case with Sri Lanka in 2009 - or now in the Sudan, Syria, the Central African Republic or even Burundi and Myanmar - the consequences for the lives of millions of people would be immense. I also believe that it is clear from the 1999 Srebrenica report that the safe area concept can work, but only if implemented properly. I believe it should be examined very thoroughly for possible application in some of today's crises, where the acute suffering of innocent people reminds us ofthe thousands of families weeping, hauntingly, for the men and boys of Srebrenica whom they would never see again. Srebrenica was a catastrophe for its inhabitants and the refugees huddled there on 11 July 1995, and also for the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina and for the United Nations.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“General Rupert Smith, the single most influential United Nations Commander, who brought the fighting in Bosnia and Herzegovina to an end in 1995, today argues persuasively that Commanders of United Nations operations must command, and that others must do the negotiating. If not, when they are faced with an assault on their mandate or personnel, or on civilians, the Commanders or the Special Representative of the Secretary-General will have nothing to offer in negotiations except the mission itself. Again, so long as there is no respect for the United Nations, it is likely that further massacres will be perpetrated. At the very least, ifthe United Nations is to make good on its commitment to protecting civilians, it must be resolute, undivided and clear about its intention.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“We also too often crossed the line from needing to understand the grievances of the oppressors to then almost showing sympathy with them. And this, to me was and is exceedingly dangerous. More alarmingly, we perceived the complexity of the political scene but then made the mistake of believing that what was complicated politically must also be complicated morally. It was not. The fact that all sides committed crimes was true, but this did not mean that all sides were equally guilty - not when scale and proportion were factored in. In the case ofBosnia and Herzegovina, the moral picture was actually very straightforward for anyone who wanted to see it.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“All too often in UNPROFOR, we lurched almost mindlessly from crisis to crisis, and still today the United Nations seems to skate over the surface of many of the conflicts on its agenda. Moreover, UNPROFOR feared the Bosnian Serbs. We in UNPROFOR did not even allow for the possibility they could also have feared or learned to fear us. We were often timid, and readily communicated this impression. The most foundational lesson of Srebrenica was this - to succeed, the United Nations must be respected. For the United Nations to be effective in robust peacekeeping, all parties to a conflict, and in particular the aggressor, must take the measure of the Council, its decisions and the United Nations presence on the ground. They must believe there will be serious consequences, and no impunity.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“Our inability to anticipate events, so prevalent then, is still with us today, as is our recurrent failure to understand with whom and with what we are dealing. Even after the events earlier in the war in Kljuc, Kotor Varos, Prijedor and Sanski Most, none of us believed that Mladie could be so brazen as to commit genocide when the United Nations was there in Bosnia and Herzegovina in great numbers. We got it wrong i so wrong - although the people of Srebrenica knew full well who they were confronted with and what was in store for them. We simply had not stopped to think about these issues in sufficient depth. Perhaps we could say the same thing about the international community's approach to the political crisis in July 2013 in Juba, given what unfolded subsequently in South Sudan.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“The fact that UNPROFOR had a clumsy mandate in the beginning was abundantly clear, and it was obvious that two cultures, the United Nations and NATO, operated together with some confusion. Still, those boys and men may well have lived had the UNPROFOR Chief of Staff in Sarajevo actually approved the request for close air support, or had the United Nations used air strikes in line with resolution 836 (1993) on 3 June, when the attack on Observation Post Echo took place; or on 6 July, when the advance against Srebrenica began; or on 8 July; or if Lieutenant General J anvier had approved them on 10 July, or early on the morning of 11 July. And the deeper lessons for the United Nations are as relevant today as they were 20 years ago.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“On the night of 11 July, Ratko Mladie began the process of transforming that military victory into a crime on a scale not seen in Europe since 1945. It was, apparently, on that night that he took the decision to execute the 1,000 boys and men gathered in Potocari. The mass executions began on 13 July. Realizing that they had been undetected by the United Nations, the killers continued their work until over 8,000 hors de combat boys and men were dead. In the years since then, while many of us have been haunted by these events, there has never been a proper discussion about them at the United Nations, beyond one perfunctory debate in the General Assembly in 1999.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“But when Lieutenant General J anvier spoke to General Tolimir on the evening of 10 July to demand that the Bosnian Serb soldiers immediately halt their firing, Janvier telegraphed, in his choice of words, his reluctance to use air power. On 11 July, NATO aircraft were flying over Srebrenica from 6 a.m., ready to pounce, but there was no request from Lieutenant General Janvier. Only after the Bosnian Serbs began to actually overrun the United Nations blocking position at 11 am. did Janvier present his request to Special Representative of the Secretary- General Akashi, who approved it. But there was a condition attached to the order - air power could be used only against the actual weapons system firing on the United Nations blocking position, so not only was it all too late, but also too little. The safe area was seized.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“The following day, 4 June, Ratko Mladie met with the overall United Nations Commander, Lieutenant General Bernard Janvier, and came away with the impression that the United Nations would not use NATO air power so long as the Bosnian Serbs refrained from threatening United Nations personnel. One month later, as the Bosnian Serb army advanced on Srebrenica from the south-east, there were two requests for close air support from DutchBat, on 6 and 8 July, respectively. Both of them were denied, even though resolution 836 (1993) had been clearly violated. When Mladie saw that there was minimal resistance, he decided on 9 July to take the town. On 10 July, the Dutch set up a blocking position that, if overrun, the United Nations warned, would trigger a NATO response.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“Earlier, on 8 March, Radovan Karadzic' had approved his Directive 7, ordering the Bosnian Serb Army to squeeze the eastern enclaves, including Srebrenica, to "create an unbearable situation... with no hope of survival or life for the inhabitants of Srebrenica and Zepa". Together with this pause in the use of air strikes coming into being in the first days of June, a door clicked open and the hand of Ratko Mladie swung towards it. On 3 June, the Bosnian Serbs attacked Observation Post Echo on the edge of the Srebrenica safe area, found little resistance and took over the post. It was the litmus test for what was to come.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“The United Nations simply became reactive, especially after the collapse of the Vance-Owen plan in 1993. Only on 24 and 25 May 1995 did this change. Following the withdrawal of heavy weapons from the United Nations weapons collection sites around Sarajevo, a new UNPROFOR Commander, more disposed to the use of air power, warned both sides to return their weapons. The Bosnian Serbs were slow to comply and air strikes, as opposed to close air support, were ordered. The next day, the Bosnian Serbs bombed Tuzla, leading to a second set of NATO air strikes on Bosnian Serb targets. This prompted, in turn, the taking of some 400 United Nations peacekeepers hostage. Soon after, the United States, together with the United Kingdom and France, decided to suspend the use of air strikes. The stage was set for Srebrenica.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“They were concerned by the apparent contradiction of having Blue Helmet troops take sides in a conflict, yet by not taking sides when the conflict was so obviously one-sided, with an aggressor and a clear victim, the United Nations appeared to many to be doing just that - siding with the aggressor. The hesitation of the United Nations to use NATO air power meant the Bosnian Serb leadership could push on an open door. Whenever, in 1994, UNPROFOR came under attack in one of the six designated safe areas and requested closer support from NATO, leading to what was described as "pinprick attacks", the Bosnian Serb leadership took United Nations personnel hostage. This caused even more vacillation in the United Nations, prompting the Bosnian Serb leadership to exert even greater levels of pressure.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“That stick was used successfully in February 1994 when the United Nations used the threat of NATO air power to oblige the Serbs to cease their pounding of Sarajevo. Yet that stick was then dropped by UNPROFOR during the GoraZde crisis in April 1994, when the Secretary-General, the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, the Special Representative of the Secretary- General and the UNPROFOR Commander in Bosnia and Herzegovina, General Sir Hugh Michael Rose, were not eager to use the threat of force and settled only for close air support, a limited action solely in defence of the United Nations.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“Early in 1993, the Bosnian Deputy Prime Minister Hakija Turajlie was shot and killed by Bosnian Serb soldiers at a checkpoint outside Sarajevo, while riding in a United Nations armoured personnel carrier. The United Nations watched the killing haplessly. In one sudden bloody stroke, it lost the respect of both sides to the conflict. When General Morillon placed Srebrenica under the protection of the United Nations two months later, it restored some credibility to the Force, but it also showed UNPROFOR to be operating in its own orbit, unguided by New York. Resolution 836 (1993) subsequently gave UNPROFOR that guidance, and some leverage too, by providing a stick - that is, the authority to take the necessary measures, including use of force, such as NATO air power, in reply to bombardments against the six safe areas.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“One week ago, The Hague Institute for Global Justice and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum organized a discussion that brought together, for the first time, many of the key officials connected to the events 20 years ago in Bosnia and Herzegovina, especially Srebrenica. Our task was to piece together in detail what happened from the formation of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992 to the fall of Srebrenica and the mass murder that ensued, with the help of recently declassified documents, as well as materials from the relevant trials at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Allow me to briefly narrate some of the key events.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“Mr. Al Hussein: The sounds of mass murder and war are not the howling of machine guns or popping of side arms. The real sounds of an act of genocide, the sounds of Srebrenica that I heard years ago were the dull, low moaning of 10,000 and more living victims of genocide - all the mothers, sisters and daughters of the murdered 8,000 boys and men. How could we, all of us, in the United Nations at the time have been so foolish as not to anticipate their murder? How could we have made so many mistakes? Still today we have not properly understood them, nor have we even taken the right corrective measures to avoid their repetition.”
2015-07-08 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7481 (2015) · source
“5) I, too, believe this form of innovative thinking deserves further elaboration. I urge the States parties to explore it, along with the members of the Security Council.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“The recent entry into force of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is a real source of hope, if more Member States ratify it and agree to implement it genuinely, particularly articles 6 and 7, which provide for the human rights safeguards that are the treaty's heart. The Security Council should continue to provide strong support to the ATT, and it should mandate United Nations operations to build ATT implementation capacity into their regional and national assistance, hand-in-hand with capacity-building for human rights and rule-of-law institutions. When in came to the ATT, my predecessor, Navi Pillay, proposed to the Council in August 2014 that "where there are concerns about human rights in States that purchase arms, one condition of sale would be that they accept a small human rights monitoring team". (S/PV. 7247, p.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“Their ubiquitous availability can contribute to the sustained denial of human rights, including to education and health; the lethality of criminal behaviour; the breakdown of social structures; the illicit plundering of natural resources; decreasing trade and investment; rising violence against women and girls; gang violence; the collapse of the rule of law; and a generalized sense of impunity, opening up in many parts of the world completely lawless landscapes. My Office welcomes the convening ofthis meeting. We appeal to the Security Council to continue to build on resolution 2117 (2013). We also note the upcoming second open-ended meeting of the Group of Experts in a few weeks' time, and hope it will make serious progress.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“The contrast is also breathtakingly stark between the comfortable profits of the brokers of these weapons - not to speak the accompanying lifestyles of the more successful of them - and the victims of their use, who in the majority of cases are likely to find no recourse or remedy for the torment and disabilities these arms and weapons have caused them. We are all aware small arms do not only make easy the taking of lives, and the maiming of lives, they also kill economies and the social bonds on which every kind of collective institution and progress rely.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“The pathologies of human behaviour have yet to determine why. But we do know that, if the oldest companion of war is war crime, its bride is the profiteer. There are simply too many who will indulge in the commerce of death and in the illicit business of arms transfers, which is undeniably damaging to human life. Yet we rarely see those responsible for facilitating and abetting serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law held accountable in any way. We must place the protection of human life and human rights at the centre of this discussion.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“Frequently, they are the left-behinds - people who cannot flee when danger looms because they have nowhere to go or because they are not physically able to move. Many are killed; countless others are maimed, and may be permanently disabled. If they were to reflect reality more closely, the silhouettes used for target practice would not then be menacing gunmen, but terrified people hiding under tables, or cowering in the corners of dark rooms with their families, or lying face down in a ditch. And why? Because war is not just the clinical fulfilment of some military or strategic objective; war, in the killing zone, often means a gruesome showcasing of human cruelty, for reasons we still do not yet properly understand. Why does it have to be violent to civilians and non-combatants?”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“And yet, the human and economic cost of armed violence also runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars. These are the weapons of the easy kill - the most portable, most easily accessible, most casual instruments of death. Even a small child can, with its tiny muscles, vanquish a life. In war, however, appallingly, it is often the child that receives the bullet. The vast majority of victims are not the live version of the silhouetted man on a white sheet of paper holding a gun, which law enforcement and militaries the world over use for target practice. The live version is very different. The majority of bullet-ridden and mortar- blasted humans are ordinary people, not combatants in armed conflict. They tend to be among the poorest or most vulnerable members of society: older people, women, children and people with disabilities.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“Mr. Al Hussein: I am delighted to see you, Madam President, presiding over the Council this month. I wish you the best of success. I am also grateful for the opportunity to address the Council on the human cost of the illicit transfer, destabilizing accumulation and misuse of small arms and light weapons. The bloodshed and devastation caused by these weapons never fail to elicit unanimous declarations of dismay, but when the international community is called upon to control more effectively the production and trade of small arms and light weaponry, States push for loose definitions, as well as numerous exclusions and loopholes, and enforcement remains weak. The reason is clear. The trade in small arms is a multi-billion-dollar business.”
2015-05-13 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7442 (2015) · source
“And what good will it be then? What good will it be to all of us if action never comes, or arrives far too late to be effective? Without supreme and joint resolve now, the common bond will soon also disappear, along with the cultures stitched by time into one heritage i a debt so dreadful and malignant to our children that I hope it is one we cannot bear to inflict.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“The United Nations Network on Racial Discrimination and Minorities, which my Office coordinates, can help Member States develop strategies to open opportunities to marginalized minority groups and to build in greater protection for their human rights. It is only by insisting on the dignity and worth of all human beings, securing their rights and their space on this Earth properly and meaningfully, that we will all survive. The delicate mosaic is being shattered, and the Security Council must take action unanimously and decisively to end the conflicts and refer Iraq and Syria to the International Criminal Court. It must end the fighting in Yemen, Libya and other countries too. Or are we going to have to wait until the strength of the victims, of all humankind, to produce more tears has sapped - when finally only the stones can weep?”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“It grows in States that betray their people, that fail to respect their own Constitutions, and that do not embrace, genuinely, the ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity of their societies; in States where the voice and participation of all members of society are smothered; in States that attack civil society activists, whose work, ironically, is the very best antidote against the toxin of extremism. To immunize properly against further radicalism, human rights defenders must be promoted and defended, not imprisoned and tortured. Sadly, there are many such States in the Middle East and other regions, and by their actions they fertilize the soil of intolerance, where extremism takes root.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“It is partial in the sense that States have often focused primarily on communities with which they share specific cultural ties, overlooking abuses of other marginalized communities, and brushing away concerns regarding discriminated groups in their own countries. It is sporadic because the rights of minorities are often highlighted only after the outbreak of extreme violence, even though that eruption is virtually always preceded by years of exclusion, disregard for linguistic and religious rights, and obstacles to full participation in the political, social, cultural and economic life of the State. If we attend to minority rights only after slaughter has begun, then we have already failed. Fanaticism always finds oxygen and flourishes where tolerance and the universal standards of human rights are battered.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“An intricately interwoven social fabric in Syria and Iraq is giving way to the demented obliteration of any difference and any choice not in conformity with the taxi world view - which is itself impossibly thin. And yet, in what amounts to a painful paradox and a most terrible irony, Daesh may be more accepting of diverse ethnic origins when it comes to its own members - so long as those same members act in accordance with Takfiri ideology - than many States are when it comes to their own citizens. And how can that be? The international community's attention to the human rights of minorities is too often both partial and sporadic.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“As the chaos and violence of Syria bleed across international borders, they have birthed Daesh, a totalitarian-minded Takfiri group determined to silence all dissent. Iraq's exceptionally rich cultural landscape includes communities that have lived in the region since the opening lines of history. But two weeks ago, an investigative mission by my Office found that vicious attacks against the Yazidis by Daesh may amount to genocide. Other communities, as our report also shows, have suffered great violence - including crimes against humanity and war crimes - at the hand of non-State actors and State-affiliated forces. Ancient and deeply significant monuments have been ravaged. All this we condemn. Daesh is an abomination.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“It is easy to portray the Middle East now as exceptionally fragmented, but in reality the history of the region is marked by long-standing acceptance of multiple identities. The dramatic crises and atrocities that we see today have been fanned into flame by discrimination and by deliberate failures to respect equality and human rights. In Syria, for example, the violent suppression of peaceful protests and, now, civil war are forcing a retreat by many into the shelter of ethnic and religious identities. The once benign, even celebrated differences between communities are now, tragically, being carved into bitter and lethal divisions as the country continues to break apart. Many communities have suffered appalling violence and targeted attacks by all sides, often because of their religious or ethnic affiliation.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“Mr. Al Hussein: Our discussion today - which we welcome and thank you for, Mr. President - is a discussion both about tolerance, that breadth of view which acknowledges and embraces the differences between peoples, and its opposite: a maniacal ideology imposing conformity, harsh and cruel. The Preamble of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court begins: "Conscious that all peoples are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced together in a shared heritage, and concerned that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time ..." That mosaic of our heritage is our only hope for permanent peace in the world. The alternative - sharply delineated groups doomed to confrontation - will destroy us. If we are to survive, we need pluralism - societies that are enriched by exchange and grounded in respect.”
2015-03-27 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7419 (2015) · source
“This is a great wrong and an offense to Islam, Muslims and the entire world." I implore the Council to support such efforts to overturn ISIL's ideology of violence and death, for the sake of the rights of all in Iraq, irrespective of ethnic or religious identity, whether men or women, old or young. Ultimately, support given to the ideological front may be more effective than air strikes in bringing an end to the longstanding suffering of the people of Iraq.”
2014-11-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7314 (2014) · source
“And takfirism must be thwarted by an approach to life couched in those principles and laws that bind all of us - a system that will be more successful and enriching because it is open to the multiple realities of all human beings. Two months ago, when the 126 prominent Muslim scholars wrote the letter I mentioned earlier, with the aim of refuting ISIL's spurious claims to speak on behalf of Islam, it did not, sadly, receive the worldwide attention it so thoroughly deserved. To me, that concerted effort to strip ISIL, point by point, of its argument is a promising approach. And the scholars could not have been clearer when, in conclusion, they wrote to Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, "You have misinterpreted Islam into a religion of harshness, brutality, torture and murder.”
2014-11-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7314 (2014) · source
“And in the end the passionate idealists forget the omelette, and just go on breaking eggs." I therefore question whether it is possible to bomb an ideology such as this into submission, or hope that it can just vaporize at the end of a judge's gavel. ISIL may weaken or wither, it is true, but it will likely be replaced by another takfiri group. Nine years ago, we talked at length about Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi and his group in this very Chamber, and here we still are, with a different group and the same ideology - only now it is worse. And no matter how inhumane the takfiris are, as long as they can sow confusion among Muslims by exploiting a broadly shared Muslim yearning, they will likely survive. Thought must therefore be undermined by thought.”
2014-11-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7314 (2014) · source
“That method, in which the end justifies the means, in which an ideal is built in a group's own mind and then reached for, come what may i including through lies and the commission of atrocities - is, of course, not new. As Isaiah Berlin wrote in his famous credo 20 years ago, reprinted in The New York Review ofBooks only three weeks ago, "the search for a single, overarching ideal because it is the one and only true one for humanity invariably leads to coercion. And then to destruction, blood - eggs are broken, but the omelette is not in sight, there is only an infinite number of eggs, human lives, ready for the breaking.”
2014-11-18 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.7314 (2014) · source