The U.N. Is So Often Worthless Against Human Rights Violating Countries
The U.N. being such an absurd shit show, where the worst human rights abusers are treated foxes given gold keys to the hen house-style, it can't properly act when it should.
A Saudi woman, an activist who fought for women's right to drive in Saudi Arabia, has been imprisoned, accused of harming the kingdom's security, and is being sent to the court that deals with terrorists' cases.
In The New York Times, Ben Hubbard writes:
BEIRUT, Lebanon -- Appearing weak and shaking uncontrollably, one of Saudi Arabia's most prominent prisoners, the women's rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul, appeared before a Saudi judge on Wednesday to learn that her case was being transferred to a special court for terrorism and national security crimes, her family said.Ms. al-Hathloul, 31, has been detained since spring 2018 and charged with crimes that include seeking to change the kingdom's political system, campaigning for women's rights and communicating with foreign journalists, diplomats and human rights organizations.
Rights groups have called her trial a sham and accused the kingdom of using its courts to punish her and other activists for their outspokenness.
The new twist in Ms. al-Hathloul's case comes as Saudi Arabia prepares to transition from a close rapport with President Trump, who cared little about the human rights records of America's Arab allies, to an uncertain relationship with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.
During the campaign, Mr. Biden vowed to reassess the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia, take away the "dangerous blank check" he said the Trump administration had offered it and impose penalties for human rights violations.
This should be the job of the United Nations, and one of Biden's priorities should be to call for its reform, which I think will probably happen about when you look out an airplane window and see pigs landing in between the 767s at Dulles.
More from the piece:
Ms. al-Hathloul would later tell relatives that she and two other women had been taken from jail to a private facility nearby and tortured.When her trial began in March 2019, the official charge against her included attempting to apply for a job at the United Nations and communicating with foreign journalists, diplomats and human rights organizations, according to her siblings and others who saw the indictment.
After a few sessions, the trial stopped, only to resume early this year before the Saudi government imposed a lockdown to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Her relatives last saw her on October 26, when she began a hunger strike to protest restrictions on family visits and other prison conditions. But she gave it up two weeks later, after prison authorities woke her up repeatedly during the night, her family said.
Ms. al-Hathloul's family was informed only on Tuesday that she had a new hearing on Wednesday, they said.
"No matter what happens, this whole thing is a charade," said Adam Coogle, deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. "It's not a fair legal system. Loujain needs to be released."
I'm sure that will do the job.
The UN exists for two reasons. First to provide high paying no show jobs for important people. Secondly to funnel graft to second and third world dictators, their supporters, friends and relatives.
When New York City empties out, will there be any reason for the organization to remain even nominally in the US?
Isab at November 27, 2020 5:25 AM
Well, it also provides a place where diplomats who aren't officially talking to each other can still secretly talk to each other. Which sounds incredibly stupid and childish but that is the human race for you.
All this 'the UN doesn't promote my values' stuff is stupid. No the UN doesn't do that. It never has. No it isn't going to morph into some utopian world government. Deal with reality and not the fantasy advertisers sold you.
Ben at November 27, 2020 9:46 AM
The UN is a walking contradiction, by necessity.
In its General Assembly, the UN offers a forum in which all nations can air grievances as equals; an alternative to going to war.
However, in order to provide that forum, it must uphold the pretense that the governments represented at the UN are legitimate governments expressing the will of their people, and not dictatorial thug-ocracies bent on regional domination; that they are worthy of being equal participants in world affairs.
It's a delicate balancing act that the UN does not always pull off successfully; and, perhaps, never will.
Conan the Grammarian at November 27, 2020 11:42 AM
The UN was never anything better than a vehicle for senseless dreaming. It began as a club for the winners of WW2 to try to lock in that war's results forever, just as the League of Nations and the Congress of Vienna before that tried to do the same thing after other world wars. All three have shown it doesn't work.
The UN took this to a new higher level of silliness by also creating the General Assembly, a club run by and for the world's dictators to keep their people downtrodden. No one is ever going to take seriously a "human rights" body chaired by Libya, Iran, China, and other gross violators, and which does nothing but recycle debunked hate against Israel.
But now they are trying to take advantage of the current needless panic over Covid to foist The Great Reset on the world. This must not succeed, even if it takes a war to stop it.
I am very disappointed that President Trump did not pull the US out of the UN and kick the UN out of the US. It's been time for decades.
jdgalt1 at November 27, 2020 12:10 PM
"The new twist in Ms. al-Hathloul's case comes as Saudi Arabia prepares to transition from a close rapport with President Trump, who cared little about the human rights records of America's Arab allies, to an uncertain relationship with President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr."
They just had to get in a dig at Trump, with extra points for the common trope of believing they can read Trump's mind. Who says he doesn't "care" about human rights violations as opposed to doing the best negotiating he can with the realities that exist? Where does his administration's plan to advance gay rights world-wide fit into his alleged indifference to human rights? And doesn't advancing peace in the ME also advance human rights??
There's a big stinky elephant in the room that this article ignores, and its name is IRAN. The Obama/Biden administration kissed the ass of the biggest perpetrator of human rights violations and supporter of terrorism in the Middle East.
RigelDog at November 28, 2020 8:59 AM
The fact that world affairs is a chess game eludes them. They're ignoring the fact that Trump was using Saudi Arabia as a bulwark against an aggressively expansionist Iran.
Biden's proposed cabinet is a bit heavy on foreign affairs interventionists.
Conan the Grammarian at November 28, 2020 1:47 PM
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