Human rights activists demand more protection for minorities in forgotten conflicts – The council lacks credibility

On occasion of the 22nd session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) calls for a better protection of minority groups in forgotten conflicts. "Everybody is talking about the suffering of the civilian population in Syria – but it not much of an international issue, that Sudan has now denied humanitarian access to needy civilians in the conflict zone of South Kordofan for ten months," criticized the STP. On May 2, 2012, the UN Security Council issued resolution No. 2046, demanding Sudan to immediately allow aid agencies to access the regions of South Kordofan. Minority protection is also to be seen as insufficient in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, China and Burma.

According to the STP, the fact that it is President Joachim Gauck who will speak before the Human Rights Council as head of the state today – not the Foreign Minister or his human rights commissioner as otherwise usual – must be seen as a sign of appreciation towards the German human rights initiative. The STP also sees Gauck's visit as a subsidy of the Human Rights Council whose credibility is in question.

Thus, the UN council is known to perceive human rights violations very one-sidedly. "While there are special meetings regarding the situation in the Middle East, nobody really cares about the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where almost 800,000 people are on the run from another escalation of the conflict since April 2012," said the STP's expert on questions regarding Africa, Ulrich Delius. "Double standards are being applied here." The Congolese government refuses to let independent experts visit the country, but the Human Rights Council didn't even appoint a special rapporteur to document the cases of rape, murder, arson and looting. "But as long as governments can go unpunished for prohibiting even the documentation of severe human rights violations, a comprehensive protection of human rights remains elusive."

On occasion of the session of the Human rights Council, the Society for Threatened Peoples also issued commentaries on particularly pressing human rights issues such as the ongoing impunity in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Nearly four years after the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka's, crimes against the civilian population still remain unpunished. In Pakistan, Baloch people are still regularly abducted, tortured or murdered by the security forces without the responsible people being held accountable. The Shiite Hazara in Pakistan are being terrorized by Sunni extremists. In other commentaries, the STP criticizes Burma and China. In Burma, the Muslim Rohingya minority is not being recognized and suffers from a lack of protection. In China, the Uyghur, Mongolian and Tibetan nomads are being forced to settle, depriving them from their livelihood.