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By Our Representative
Advance release of the opening remarks, which Navi Pillay, United
Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, will be delivering at the Human
Rights Council’s 26th session on June 10 at Geneva, reveals that the top UN
body is all set to highlight issues pertaining to caste and Dalit
discrimination as one of the major agendas during future discussions on human
rights. Suggesting that caste-based discrimination as equal to the discrimination based
on religion and race, Pillai, who is to be replaced by Jordan's Zeid Al Hussein soon, regrets, certain countries refuse to discuss contentious
issues related to discrimination.
Pillay particularly takes exception to the manner in which
some countries (she does not name which) prefer not to discuss cases of
discrimination. Saying that for some countries addressing such cases may mean “mean
brutal anti-terror tactics”, Pillay says, but for others, it would mean “inhumane
treatment of minorities, or migrants.”
Pillay particularly expresses concern over the fact that “certain
states (countries) may feel that lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and
intersex people – or women, or persons with albinism, or people of certain castes,
religion, race – somehow have less right than others to live a life of dignity.”
She emphasises, “Effective human rights advocacy must
necessarily open a Pandora’s box of hidden abuses. It does so to let in light
and air, so that work may begin to ensure better governance and justice. All human
rights violations are illegitimate, whether directed against dissenters and
critics; migrants; minorities; indigenous peoples; or people of specific
gender, religion, class, caste or race.”
Made available by Marie Gertz Schlundt, assistant programme officer,
International Dalit Solidarity Network (ISDN), which is based in Copenhagen,
Denmark, Pillay further says, “All people deserve accountable and
democratic governance under the rule of law. In developed and developing
countries alike, corruption undermines social justice and the right to participate
in, contribute to, and enjoy economic, social, cultural and political
development.”
She adds, “Political leaders must be accountable, and respond
without discrimination to popular aspirations, addressing the needs and rights
of the poor and marginalized in order to fully realise the right to
development. I hope that states can bridge their political divide on the right
to development.”
While recognising that the “threat of terrorism is a clear
challenge”, she underlines, “In coming years we must also struggle against
abusive counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency tactics that violate the
rights to life, freedom from forced disappearance, arbitrary detention, and
torture. The point of counter-terror measures is to protect the rule of law and
human rights — not to undermine them.”
“It will also be necessary to step up our work to maintain
the right to privacy, in the face of governmental and corporate attempts to
create a surveillance society via new technologies. And there can be little
doubt that the global climate crisis is also a human rights crisis – most
urgently for people in coastal communities and small island States, but also
for all of humanity, as it increasingly threatens health, food, water, housing,
and other essential and universal human rights”, she points out.
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