Lorne Gunter
Calgary Herald
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Each year, the human rights watchdog Freedom House surveys all 193
countries in the world, plus 15 select territories, and assesses the
state of freedom in each.
During 2007, Freedom House determined that 90 countries (47 per cent)
were free. Their governments respected "a broad array of basic human
rights and political freedoms." This is good news. Since these countries
also represent nearly one-half of the world's population, that means we
are approaching the day when a majority of Earth's inhabitants live free.
Since 1977, the number of free countries has doubled. Another 60
countries (31 per cent) were "partly free." While there were "some
abridgements of basic rights and weak enforcement of the rule of law" in
these countries, political dissent was mostly permitted, elections were
largely free and citizens could believe what they wished without much
fear of imprisonment. (Sort of like Canada before human rights
commissions began telling us what thoughts were and were not acceptable.)
But 43 countries and eight territories were "not free," according to
Freedom House. In those states "citizens endure systematic and pervasive
human rights violations." Freedom of expression and assembly are limited
or non-existent. Critics of the government are imprisoned and
occasionally executed. Of this Un-Free 43, Freedom House considers 17
countries and three territories to be "the worst of the worst."
"Within these (17) entities," Freedom House explains, "state control
over daily life is pervasive and wide-ranging, independent organizations
and political opposition are banned or suppressed, and fear of
retribution for independent thought and action is part of daily life."
Furthermore, eight of these are considered "the world's most repressive
regimes." These include Burma (Myanmar), where the junta is so
repressive and paranoid it won't permit most international aid to enter
its cyclone-ravaged land for fear aid workers will seduce the Burmese
into revolt.
They value their power more than they value the lives of tens of
thousands of their countrymen. The other seven most-repressive are Cuba,
Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Also
included are two territories, Chechnya and Tibet.
Freedom House only places China in the next-to-worst group -- the nine
countries and one territory that, while among the worse regimes on the
planet, are not quite as bad as the eight "most-repressive."
China, then, is in a sort of outer-circle-of-hell group along with
Belarus, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Laos, Saudi Arabia, Syria,
and Zimbabwe.
The fascinating aspect for me is how many of Freedom House's "worst of
the worst list" have also been elected by the UN to be voting members on
its human rights council.
The UN human rights watchdog has 47 members. One, Cuba, is among the
eight most-repressive governments in the world, as judged by Freedom
House. And two more, China and Saudi Arabia, are among the bottom 17
countries.
In all, 10 members of the UN Human Rights Council -- more than one-fifth
of its complement -- are from Freedom House's list of countries that
have few if any freedoms.
On May 21, 15 of the 47 UNHRC seats will come up for election or
re-election. Along with UN Watch, an organization that analyzes UN
activities, statements and programs, Freedom House has declared that
five of the 15 candidate countries -- Bahrain, Gabon, Pakistan, Sri
Lanka and Zambia -- are entirely unfit for membership because of their
rights records. All but one of them (Bahrain) is already a member of the
commission. This goes to show how useless the UN is at protecting human
rights.
Of the 47 member states, UN Watch calculates that just 13 have
pro-freedom voting records at council meetings. Canada leads the way
with 19 freedom-defending votes on the 32 most important resolutions to
come before UNHRC last year. The next-best records belong to France,
Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia and the United
Kingdom, all with 11 for 32 records.
Yet that leaves 34 UNHRC members with anti-freedom voting patterns,
including Russia and China, which voted against expanding freedom 18 of
32 times and 19 of 32, respectively.
This was not supposed to happen. Three years ago when the corrupt,
feckless UN Commission on Human Rights was replaced by the UNHRC, the
world was reassured the council would never become hijacked by
rights-abusing countries the way its predecessor had been.
But once again the UN has placed the foxes in charge of the henhouse.
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