The UN Human Rights Committee is a body which routinely pulls its punches. It treats member states with respect, whether they deserve it or not. The UN is of course composed of nations many of which have much to hide on human rights, so the glass houses and stones argument is much applied.
In that context, the new advisory report of the UN Human Rights Committee on Uzbekistan is absolutely damning – as damning as these reports ever get. It contains one paragraph of “Positive Aspects” and 25 paragraphs of “Concerns”.
Concerns include lack of judicial independence, widespread use of torture, the position of women, the failure to produce bodies or graves of those executed by the state, lack of freedom of speech and movement, and use of forced labour – to name but a few.
Not even the UN can pretend that the human rights situation in Uzbekistan is anything other than abysmal.
Still more astonishing then that the Home Office has refused the asylum applications of every single one of the few dozen escapees from Uzbekistan to make it to the UK – which still has the Soviet exit visa system and locks its people in. Even last week the Home Office was still claiming at immigration hearings that there is no human rights problem in Uzbekistan. (Fortunately judges have been less blinkered and asylum cases have been won on appeal).
The UN and EU countries continue to use Uzbekistan as a major supply base for the occupation of Afghanistan. Major new contracts between the US and Uzbekistan were signed in March 2009, and Hilary Clinton is to pay an official visit to President Karimov in November this year.
Even more disgusting is that it now emerges that the newly reinvigorated US/Uzbek relationship was made possible in negotiations because the US agreed to contract Gulnara Karimova’s company FMN Logistics to provide the transport for all the US supplies passing through Central Asia to the US forces in Afghanistan.
Not only that, but the Karimov company FMN Logistics is involved in construction and supply services on the US airbases in Afghanistan itself, and has been involved in the massive expansion work to the prison at Baghram Airbase to provide a replacement Guantanamo torture centre further away from media access.
The Pentagon contracts are worth $850 million a year to the Karimovs.
Btw Arsalan, it was pretty awful to hear that you don’t feel that you or your children are safe here anymore (though not as awful as it must be to feel it). Is there any way to help?
@ Suhayl
Thanks for the generous comments about the band…if you ever find yourself at one of our gigs make yourself known to me-i’m the bassist.
Never heard about the Celtic rock band you mention,i’ll try and check them out.And i shall look forward to reading some of your work.
” The Lay Of The Minstrel”.. Maybe that’s where Jimi got Voodoo Chile from? ” Well i stand up next to a mountain..chop it down with the edge of my hand…”
One never knows eh?
Regards..
technicolour: “Apparently the ‘blood libel’ (I’d never heard of it) was a powerful propaganda tool.”
Thank you for admitting to your ignorance of anti-Jewish hatred. Ever heard of the Protocols of Elders of Zion?
Thanks to dreollin for flagging up the incentives to carry on with Chaotics in Afghanistan.
Drugs are the motor of the CIA, they ahve been at the time of the Vietnam war, th Contra affair and are now playing a major part in US destabilisation of Columbia.
The war on terror cannot be disconnected from the war on drugs, the two are merged, the only way to uphold a disastrous prohibition, their way to maximise drugs profits and keep global faultlines open to their interventions.
prtesidernt Uribe is the greatest drug dealer in the world next to Walid Karzai and Dostum, all of them fettered by US companies and pentagon intervention. Those who are adjectively against drugs and promoting a useless and disorganised prohibition, are in reality fuelling its markets.
Russia has a massive heroin problem thanks to its direct communications with the karimov syndicate, you can’t call them a Government anymore.
I suggest to write a letter to all broadsheets, denouncing the karimovs as being involved in multpiple raketeering, be it arms or drugs, of torture and genocide of its own people.
I would sign it.
But which of our politicians will realise that the 40 year old misuse of drugs act is a piece of very expensive shite?
Who will take notice of sense in a wolrd were celebrity counts for more than anything? What stunts do we have to pull to be noticed, stopping large road programmes and protesting in a non violent manner does not win over the public, indeed the public is politically inept and fed trivia and false news as of normal. rewriting history is an international sport and we in the west are best at it.
This is what is mainly going on here on this forum, people who attempt to rewrite history, who by their own actions, cannot square their actions with the reality and facts as they apply.
Murdering children in Gaza, taking organs from half dead people without consent and enslaving eastern european women against their will, whilst ignoring the Palestinian genocide one is contemplating and making out that they are all terrorist, just to quote Golda meir, is all part and parcel of their deception here.
Do not waver, show your contempt for these historical whitewashers.
A former Israeli Air Force Major tells the truth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wldvJYuFmKw&feature=related
Tech
The statement that you made about some people attacking Israel on purely anti-Semitic grounds may have been true before the early 90s.
At that time they started to realise that their attacks against Israel weren’t fruitful because genuine Anti Zionists didn’t want anything to do with them. We actually found them to be an embarrassed because Anti-Zionist Jews play a massive part in the AntiZionist movement.
So after the mid 90s the NeoNazis and other white supremacists started to change sides and by the turn of the millennium the defection was total and they had formed a rock solid alliance with the Zionists.
So yes, that may have been the case about one and a half decades ago, but not any more. Now all the NeoNazis have changed sides and the Zionists have welcomed them with open arms.
And good riddance, we didn’t want them anyway.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_QfVWU-2pVL4/SqTeXYhGjtI/AAAAAAAAIJM/UGa9WpIARIQ/s1600/English%2BDefence%2BLeague%2Bsupporters%2Bhold%2Baloft%2Bthe%2Bflag%2Bof%2BIsrael%2Band%2Bgesture%2Bto%2Bpolice%2Bas%2Bthey%2Bare%2Bcorralled%2Binto%2Ba%2Bsubway%2Bfollowing%2Bthe%2Bdemonstration.jpg
Look at those Zionists and NeoNazi skinheads demonstrating together.
The racist bastards deserve each other.
Let them spend the rest of eternity united in the deepest pits of hell.
Senior British Jewish MP and former minister calls Israeli govt, Nazis!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8&feature=related
And now Larry comes back, having ignored my previous requests to take back his assertion that anti-semitism goes unchallenged on this board, despite the screeds and screeds of exhaustive (and exhausting) comments which challenge anti-semitism whenever those few random posters appear. And why? To try and demonstrate that because someone has not heard of the ‘blood libel’ they are ignorant of anti-Jewish hatred. And this despite the fact that the post was partly about the reality of anti-semitism.
Arsalan (who we know is not antisemitic, don’t worry) perhaps I’m wrong & name calling is the only answer. Larry, you’re clearly unable to read more than one sentence at a time. And you’re making an appalling advocate for your cause, whatever it is.
Meanwhile over on Medialens we see a great dissection of the current coverage of the latest ‘relatively small’ assault on Gaza. Ingo, I agree, down with these historical whitewashers. Now we need to sort our own house out, of course. The Lib Dem Freedom Bill (thanks whoever posted that again) shows something of what we need to do.
[email protected] pm
I agree with your basic premise that we should not boil everything down to a dualistic paradigm – but then you try to pigeon hole me in such a fashion by labelling me as being an imperialist.
I’m afraid I just try to judge everything on a case by case basis from the basic position of believing in democracy and individual human rights. I have no problems in being on the same side as the US when it comes to opposing fascists such as in Nazi Germany or Iraq. Or opposing totalitarians and those who invade their neighbours such as Milosevic, Mugabe, Karimov, Saddam and a hosty of others. I also support the right of the Jews to have their own homeland if that is waht they want. That doesn’t mean that I cannot oppose the US when it does act as an imperialist – as in mich of LAtin and Central America – or resort to torture or other abuse. Similarly the state of Israel is far from perfect – I have no problem in condemning the many massacres in which it has been involved and the over proportionate use of force which it says it uses to defend itself.
I’m afraid it is not possible to place every single country in the world into good or bad boxes, you just have to judge everything on a case by case basis – and start from the imperfect world that we have. Dialectics, marxist or otherwise, just don’t work in a multi-dimensional world.
Of course, genuine arguments can arise because individuals place different weights on differnt factors – I suspect that many who opposed the overthrow of Saddam for example are more concerned about being anti-imperialist rather than anti-fascist.
Technicolor
I am not being disingenuos in saying that Russia has a fear of Islam – that is not the same as saying that it is not prepared to accept those that practice Islam, providing that they do not encroach on the Russian state. For that reason I don’t think that Russia (with or without Putin) would ever tolerate an Islamist state on its borders.
Arsalan
Thanks for the further compliments.
Lots of love and kisses.
A former Israeli terrorist minister, Mossad agent and daughter of Irgun terrorist leaders Eitan Livni and Sara Rosenberg, defends Israeli terrorism:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iD_niyudWyY&feature=related
Arsalan, yes. But. Don’t you think the neo-Nazis, who clearly still hate Jewish people, are laughing up their sleeves at the fact that people are waving the Israeli flag alongside them? I do. Again, in 2008 the Haaretz poll showed 64 percent of Israelis in favour of talks with Hamas. Only 28 percent disagreed. That insane percentage runs the Israeli government.
Technicolour: “despite the screeds and screeds of exhaustive (and exhausting) comments which challenge anti-semitism whenever those few random posters appear.”
You really are fucking insane.
Did you notice when Arsalan accused Israel of importing Eastern European women to harvest their organs for sale to rich Americans?
Is that somehow not anti-Semitic?
Why didn’t you stand up to that?
Stephen, you ignore the fact that Putin has installed and maintained a fundamentalist Islamist state in Chechnya. You ignore the fact that the US/UK armed the ‘fascist’ or ‘totalitarian’ Hussein. You say you support the right of the ‘Jews’ to have a homeland: is that together with an appreciation of the fact that the land in question is home to the Palestinians, on whom a slow genocide is being perpetrated, against the wishes of the Jewish people too? Apparently not. Finally, you refer to the old canard that people who opposed the invasion of Iraq did so for ‘anti-imperialist’ reasons: for sure, the million or so marchers and the 70 odd percent in the polls were well versed in Marxist dialectics, not. They protested for humanitarian reasons. This common ground, this humanity, is what will save us, in the end. One hopes.
“*Hrmph*” says A Disgruntled Taxpayer. It’s a gravy train, isn’t it ? But, yes :-)”
Sorry, Richard. 🙂
Looks like they were using software and trawling for key words. You’ll have seen the reference to the necessity for human interpretation.
It does make one wonder how those thousands and thousands on the US “no-fly” list were compiled. And what the definition of a “pro-Islamic” blog is.
“for sure, the million or so marchers and the 70 odd percent in the polls were well versed in Marxist dialectics, not.”
–tech
I was on the streets and I know F-all (or very very little) about Marxist dialectics, having never studied any of it.
technicolour: “comments which challenge anti-semitism”
technicolour, when has that ever happened? I’m quite curious because I’d like to know what exactly does constitute anti-Semitism.
Really, Larry? I thought I was clearly fucking insane? Why would you suddenly be interested in my definition of anti-semitism?
In fact, if you were the same Larry who started posting back in January, you’d remember. If you were the same Larry involved in the conversation with the Neo-Nazi posters in February, you’d remember. But you’re not even the same Larry who was posting 5 minutes ago, it seems.
Quite agree, dreolin & Richard. I’m away out to celebrate Good Friday now. Hurrah for Jesus escaping to Kashmir (very beautiful in summer).
“I’m away out to celebrate Good Friday now. Hurrah for Jesus escaping to Kashmir (very beautiful in summer).”
Have a good one. 🙂
This is an interesting background article on oil and the division of the Caspian’s offshore waters – although I see no reference to Russian atrocities in Chechnya:
“The Real Story: The Moscow Train Bombing Was A Conflict Over Oil”
http://tinyurl.com/yfazqv2
damned oil here there and everywhere, and Obama opening up drilling on the Atlantic coast, and northern Alaska.
@dreoilin
Wonder if others are aware of Tolstoy’s short story, ‘The Cossacks’. The Chechens are portrayed as around the same level as wild animals, but it’s hard to be sure to what extent Tolstoy is being satirical. There is a memorable scene where the remnants of a Chechen group wiped out by the Cossacks kneel and strap their knees together (so that none can run away) and then sing their death song. It’s eerily prescient. Plus
Now your comments have gone into stretch mode. Probably Arsalan’s comment here with long jpg addy with no spaces. Perhaps you could substitute a tiny url?
“Posted by: Arsalan at April 2, 2010 2:01 PM”
A couple of interesting quotes from the Business Insider article:
“…the Kremlin quickly adding that the attacks were carried out by the Caucasus Mujaheddin, a northern Caucasus-based militant Islamist guerrilla group that claimed responsibility for the bombing of a Moscow to St. Petersburg express train last November”
Yet no-one has claimed responsibility this time.
“The two female suicide bombers were caught by closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras boarding the metro at Yugo-Zapadnaya station”
How is it possible to tell from CCTV that they were suicide bombers? It would require very thorough and painstaking forensic analysis to establish a link between the two women and the explosions. Yet the authorities cleared up the crime scene and had the trains running again within 24 hours.
LArry the liar, you can state that I have stated that Israel is full of kidnaped East Europeans who are sold in to prostitution as much as you lie.
You can also tell everyone that I say Israel Butchers people to steal their Kidneys as much as you like.
Every time you do, I will past the links.
Again here is the Kidney link:
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/07/23/2009-07-23_2_new_jersey_mayors_arrested_in_sweeping_money_laundering_probe.html
And here is the kidnaped east European link:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7487
Maybe it would be better for you if you told Israel to stop Kidnaping women and forcing them in to prostitution and stealing kidneys then shout Antisemite every time someone mentioned it.
Technicolor
“is that together with an appreciation of the fact that the land in question is home to the Palestinians,”
Yes – it is – if you look at my previous postings you will see that I believe that only a multi state solution has any chance of delivering peace.
You are just totally wrong regarding how Russians view the Chechen regime.
Don’t you believe Saddam was a facist or totalitarian – even if he was armed by the UK/US? Do you think he should just have been left in place? Do you think that his invasion of Kuwait was justified? Do you think that his gassing of Kurds was justified? If not, hoiw do you think he should have been got rid off?
Vronsky
Tolstoy had admiration for the Chechens as he demonstrated in his other works – but he also clearly understood how the Russians viewed them together with the mutual antagonism.
Interesting how the apologists are yet again trying to put distance between their Islamist friends and the suicide bombers/terrorists. It just won’t work – there are now too many atrocities to explain away.
The word for your two state solution is apatite of the South African model.
Stephen at the time when the Kurds were gased he was an American alie. you seemed to have conviently forgoten that?
And again with your last comment you have tried to drive a wedge between all that opposed your racist apatite believes.
It just won’t work – Israel has committed too many atrocities to explain away.
I can’t believe this little Nazi.
He just repeats the old lines.
Muslims, Islam AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
The same as the German Nazis, except they preferred using the word Jews.
There is an idea, lets take Larry and Stephens comments, replace Islam with Judaism and see if it matches any of Hitler’s works?
Stephen you can make fun of people here for having Muslims friends as much as you like.
To quote you:
“It just won’t work – there are now too many atrocities to explain away”
Israel has committed to many Atrocities!
So say what you like when you like. we all have our differences, but you are our enemy. You and your Israel.
Arsalan,
I can see no justification for calling Stephen a Nazi. Simple abuse is really not helpful.
I’m sorry, I’m back – it was too cold to celebrate outside. Everyone else is happily downstairs, but apparently I needed to check this blog…
Stephen: any acknowledgement of the slow genocide of the Palestinians in the meantime? No? It does the people of Israel no good at all, you know. Watch To Shoot an Elephant, if you can.
I am totally wrong in how the Russians view the Chechens? I think not. Chechnya was destroyed, opposition obliterated (or in Karydov’s case co-opted, very Tolstoy), critical journalists murdered. The point you made (I hate to keep bringing you back to the point) was how the Russian regime views Islam.
As a convenient ghoul (the line you use) or a useful tool, obviously.
As for the suicide bombers, if they did exist, it is extraordinary how quickly they were pinpointed. However, it is not unlikely that two Chechen women would have been driven insane to the point where they were prepared to kill themselves and innocent people, I agree. It is just ridiculous to suggest that they would do so for the sake of a religion.
Have you any idea what went on in Grozhny?
Arsalan, one US rabbi involved in kidney selling does not equal an entire country being aware and approving of it. Nor does linking to the same story over & again. Organ selling reportedly happens everywhere; from the UK to India to the victims of the last tsunami (it is always desperate poor people who sell their organs, obviously). Meanwhile the Chinese regime has acknowledged that the majority of organs transplanted come from executed prisoners.
It is quite awful, and proves Hegel’s point that the only real human freedom (ie one which allows us to behave with humanity) is freedom from fear of death. But, other than that, it proves nothing about people in Israel specifically, and nor have you provided any links to prove that it was or is state sanctioned.
(It’s too much hassle to go up & down pasting quotes, what with the stretchstretchy. Yes, I think it must be that long link, too)
dreoilin – gravy train. It just looks so *sloppy*, such horribly shoddy work.
whoever – Jesus in Kashmir. I used to like that story, but the more I think about it, the more I don’t like the bit about leaving a fall-guy behind to take the shit. Wasn’t there something about sacrificing himself for the sake of others ? So perhaps the wrong person’s getting the worship ?