37th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council - March 14, 2018, Geneva, Switzerland
This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights. Yet we are here in Geneva at the United Nations Human Rights Council to express our indignation and outrage to the international community and governments worldwide about the systematic violations and silencing of human rights. The charade that is the so-called “war on terror” has been the pretext for ineffable war crimes and human suffering, the militarization of justice and law enforcement, and the abrogation of human rights on a scale yet unheard of, thus securing the authority of powerful governments worldwide to engineer wars with which to implement their duplicitous agenda of hegemony and imperialism. By conducting predatory foreign policies towards selective countries such as occupied Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Syria, as a consequence we are now faced with one of the biggest human rights crises the world has ever witnessed: the refugees.
In all of world history there have never been as many refugees as today. According to the United Nations High Commissioner Refugee Agency, there are 65.6 million, forcibly-displaced people worldwide, and 22.5 million of them are considered refugees. Over half of the refugees are from Syria, South Sudan, and Afghanistan. 80% of them are women and children, more than half of whom are under the age of 18. Not all are political refugees, as many are the result of genocidal campaigns, occupation, ethnic cleansing, and conflicts. Refugees are innocent people stuck between a rock and a hard place, victims of the greatest humanitarian tragedy exploited as propagandistic weaponry in the geo-politically militarized terrorism paradigm.
Governments worldwide have failed the refugees by dehumanizing and discriminating against them and setting prerequisites for entry. Some predominantly Muslim countries have only welcomed Muslim refugees, while some Western countries have welcomed only Christians. Other countries showed blatant disregard by turning a blind eye and ignoring the refugees’ plight altogether, while some countries declined them based on the claim that there could be terrorists camouflaged among the horde of refugees. Excluding refugees because of their religion, race, or ethnicity sends a clear message of racism, prejudice, bigotry, and an exclusionary dogma which is inconsistent with the claimed intrinsic human values of the European Union, the United States, and Euro-Atlantic institutions, and-most importantly-runs counter to the purported standards of the United Nations Charter and the very evolution of international humanitarian law.
Having entered its seventh year, the devastating war in Syria has resulted in over 5.5 million Syrians fleeing to neighboring countries such as Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. 2.4 million of those refugees are children.
Disproportionate to other countries in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, who all have abundance of wealth and resources, today Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita than any of those Arab countries or any other single country in the world. Lebanon and Jordan collectively host 20% of the world’s refugee population, and both countries make up less than 1% of the world’s economy. And although Lebanon is not a signatory of the 1951 Refugee Convention, it currently hosts over 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 175,000 Palestinian refugees. The influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon has resulted in a heavy economic, social, and political burden on the nation; Lebanon does not have a contingency plan for this crisis, nor has it adopted a legal framework of action to address the refugees’ rights-much less their repatriation-to Syria. Despite Lebanon having received aid from various other countries, organizations, and institutions to help assist the refugees, this support is neither enough nor sustainable long-term.
These innocent people are living under unforgiving conditions in makeshift camps in Lebanon. Many have died trying to escape the war in Syria, while others perished in the snow from freezing temperatures when attempting to cross the borders into Lebanon.
We live today in a sectarian world governed by a corrupt network composed of military industrials, self-serving politicians, and greedy governmental mafias whose ultimate political objective is absolute authoritarian power and control over their citizens and the eradication of liberties and freedom (and hence democracy), creating chaos through wars and the predation upon and invasion and fragmentation of sovereign nations in order to offer solutions that forward their agenda. Countries who for centuries thrived and were enriched by the diversity of their religion, races, and ethnicity, are being wiped out and restructured into enclosed sectarian hive-nations.
7 мар 2020
