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.
Though you might not be free to believe it in Cuba.
Cool
Larry/ larries, you haven’t answered my question yet. My space-god and I want to know.
You know, one of the first teams into Pakistan following the earthquake of a few years ago was a Cuban medical team and they were the last to leave. They had a different approach from many of the Western teams. We never heard this in the MSM in the UK, we heard only about the NATO troops being flown-in to help, as though that justified their presence in the region. Yeah, Cuba’s not perfect. But there’s a hell of a lot to learn from it – and when one compares it with most other ‘Latin’ American countries over the past few decades, esp. those ruled by slaves of the USA… that’s why the pro-USA commentators are so very extreme in their views about Cuba (and also Venezuela). It is the example they fear. Chile, Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Mexico… the USA has donated death squads and dictators to ‘Latin’ America. Oh, and the United Fruit Company, or whatever it’s called now. School of the Americas, or whatever it’s called now: ‘Torturers ‘R Us’.
Okay, sock it to me, angrysoba! Btw, I enjoy reading your blog, even if I don’t agree with some of the views, it’s an intelligent place to roam.
Larry/ larries, when talking theology, talk theology; are the Seraphim superior to the archangels? When talking of mice and men… how’s Vauxhall, btw?
If Zionists hated Jew haters, they would be in the BNP and NF sites. Larry stephen and Angry would be bothering them.
But they don’t, Zionmists love Nazis.
Zionists love Jew haters, because Zionists are not Jews!
Zionists hate Antiracists. because we hate the racist state of Israel.
“Larry stephen and Angry would be bothering them”
How do you know that we don’t. I cannot speak for others but I frequently make posts challenging the obnoxious filth that is the BNP. I use a pseudonym when doing so for obvious reasons.
arsalan: as I’ve said repeatedly, you haven’t proved anything about Israel. You have made wild accusations of official Israeli involvement in long term organ harvesting, and accused the entire country of complicity. You’ve linked to *one* story about one man in Jersey. You’ve provided no further links to back up your accusations. And yet you haven’t retracted them.
As for this perpetual Zionist = Nazi rant, ages ago I pointed out that, the leadership aside, people can believe in a Jewish homeland without being Nazis. I reminded you that the Jewish people had suffered unthinkable persecution; something no Nazi could claim. You seemed to end up agreeing, back then. And if you now think that the far right genuinely support the state of Israel, and the people in it, you’ve been fooled. Again, we had that conversation. What’s happening to you in between?
“Okay, sock it to me, angrysoba! Btw, I enjoy reading your blog, even if I don’t agree with some of the views, it’s an intelligent place to roam.”
As far as the Cuban healthcare system goes I’m not trying to offer any criticisms as such. I just think that no one here would ever want to live under the type of government that exists in Cuba given the amount Craig’s readers complain about lack of choices at the election.
I did post a link though which I think is worth reading in case we get too carried away in believing Cuba’s healthcare system is the Holy Grail.
(And yes, I think there probably is much to learn from Cuba’s healthcare system. I also think Cuba deserves praise when it sends medical teams to places stricken by earthquakes and hurricanes as they did in Pakistan and Haiti – and I believe, attempted to do after Katrina.)
Thanks also for the kind words about my blog.
My question is pending, larries. If you are experiencing difficulty in formulating a response, perhaps Vauxhall might render unto you a list of possible answers. It is a question central to this blog. Do you remember the question, larries?
Thanks, angrysoba.
Oh dear. The loopy Larrys have been caught out again!
911 – “ISRAEL DID IT”
“Sabrosky makes a case, not just for a coverup of 9/11 but goes much further. He points out as do so many that the physics of the attack are unworkable. He, however, is one of the few to point to a conclusion many find obvious but few have the nerve to admit, that it would have been impossible to stage 9/11 without the full resources of both the CIA and Mossad and that 9/11 served the interests of both agencies quite well.”
DR ALAN SABROSKY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AT THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/19/22329/
Technicolor, nice post!
Arsalan, from what I understand you are accusing Israel of being involved with some large-scale organ trafficking which is medically impossible. You cannot shoot someone in Palestine. Remove their kidney and ship it to New Jersey for an expectant patient.
“Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet.”
That’s a strange description. 100% disabled?
Anyway Sabrovsky sounds like another nut carving out yet a new theory in an already overcrowded marketplace of nutty theories.
I expect he’ll do well here.
“Anyway Sabrovsky sounds like another nut carving out yet a new theory in an already overcrowded marketplace of nutty theories.”
I see.
So your argument is that DR ALAN SABROSKY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AT THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, is a nut?
Brilliant.
Just brilliant.
Isn’t it just much more likely that you’re the nut?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/19/22329/
“Isn’t it just much more likely that you’re the nut?”
No. He’s a nut and you are for believing he’s telling the truth on nothing more than his say-so.
By the way, I know he can’t be telling the Truth because I have heard that the Twin Towers were blown up by nuclear bombs. A man who was in the Russian military intelligence said so.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZzwyPRgY9o&
What evidence do you have that DR ALAN SABROSKY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AT THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, is a nut?
Would it be none?
And isn’t it still more likely that an anonymous blogger like you is a nut and Dr Alan Sabrosky is giving his opinion based on the evidence and his long experience?
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/19/22329/
Oh yeah, and while you’re brushing up your immense psychiatric skills could you also tell me if Ward Boston, Jr.,Captain, JAGC, USN (Ret.)Counsel to the U.S. Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation into the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, is a nut too?
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/us_ints/ul-boston.html
Oh, Roger, you just don’t understand that military training and experience does not solve for someone’s vulnerability to the stupid.
I wonder if this Sabrosky guy hangs out with Edgar Mitchell:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/deadlineusa/2009/apr/22/ufos-apollo-astronaut-extraterrestrials
I mean, Roger, are you going to tell me that Edgar Mitchell is nuts?
Therefore, little green men must exist!
We’re talking here about DR ALAN SABROSKY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AT THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE. He’s not merely a former soldier.
I ask again. What evidence do you have that he’s a nut?
And again isn’t it still more likely that an anonymous blogger like you is a nut and Dr Alan Sabrosky is giving his opinion based on the evidence and his long experience?
You don’t appear to have much in the way of argument other than calling people nuts.
Isn’t that quite telling in itself?
Anyway, I see the other Larry has popped in to give you some assistance.
You badly need it. Not that he’ll be much help of course. He doesn’t do much more than smears either.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/19/22329/
“I ask again. What evidence do you have that he’s a nut?”
Other than what you presented?
So Larry’s position is that any argument that contests the official position, even when presented by DR ALAN SABROSKY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AT THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, must be nuts.
Not exactly a compelling defense of your position, is it?
But then it’s what we’ve come to expect from you. Nothing, in fact.
I still think it much more likely that two anonymous posters are nuts or liars than someone of his experience who puts their reputation on the line.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/19/22329/
@ Cartoonist and angrysoba: it’s not necessary to be ‘instinctively’ supportive of the Palestinians. All you have to do is look at the facts. And, for the nth time, everyone should watch To Shoot an Elephant. The humanity and stoic realism displayed by the Gazan ambulance crews bears no resemblance to arsalan’s emotional state. And, in any case, why allow one person’s emotional state to sway you one way or another? I’m sure you don’t, really.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=5775880
“So Larry’s position is that any argument that contests the official position, even when presented by DR ALAN SABROSKY, FORMER DIRECTOR OF STUDIES AT THE US ARMY WAR COLLEGE, must be nuts.”
Roger, does Alan Sabrovsky’s argument improve when you write his name in capitals and provide his credentials as a DOS and put doctor at the front?
If so you are resorting to an appeal to authority. Not much of an argument.
Oh, FFS, the “9/11” obsessives are at it again. Some of the names are new ones, others have been flogging it long enough to remember that the blog-proprietor gave them a special thread for it and requested them to keep it there. *And*, for that matter, that several other people have tried to remind them of this, several times, to no apparent effect.
Here :-
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/01/the_911_post.html#comments
angrysoba – “Be careful though because one of the things Cuba that has successfully created is a meningitis vaccine. Around these parts, vaccines are often considered to be intraveinous death – or autism or maybe a NWO chip or something. Definitely bad news whatever it is.”
Wha ?
The way you put this suggests that you agree with whoever believes this ’round these parts’ (Japan ?). Did you ever hear of smallpox ? used to be a major problem, not so much now. Did you ever wonder why that is ?
Neither angrysoba nor Larry have any argument of any description, other than smears and that’s your fundamental and recurring modus operandi on this forum.
In that context any argument is better and an argument from authority better still, absent any serious rebuttal.
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/19/22329/
There’s quite a good set of videos here about routine daily Israeli treatment of the Palestinians.
Grim stuff.
http://rys2sense.com/anti-neocons/viewtopic.php?t=1716
“The way you put this suggests that you agree with whoever believes this ’round these parts’ (Japan ?). Did you ever hear of smallpox ? used to be a major problem, not so much now. Did you ever wonder why that is ?”
I’m mocking the New World Order scaremonger conspiracy types. There are many around Craig’s blog (these parts) who have opinions such as these about vaccines.
I like vaccines and think they are a good thing.