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At UN, Algeria's NGO Complaint Processed
in Secret, Vote Set for Wednesday
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
January 26 -- As
the UN moved closer to suspending its accreditation of the Arab
Commission for
Human Rights, Algeria's complaint against the group was still being
withheld,
and all discussions done in secret. Click here
for previous coverage. At
Monday's UN noon briefing, Inner City Press asked why the complaint was
being
withheld. The answer later came, that "the Committee has chosen not to make that
document
public. We have been informed that a decision on the complaint will
take place
during a public meeting, to be held within the coming days."
This ECOSOC
Committee on NGOs held
"informal consultations" behind closed doors on Monday. Inner City
Press' sources inside the meeting describe interventions by Turkey,
Egypt and
Cuba urging a fast vote to suspend the group. Strikingly, no member
state or
even NGO has step forward to oppose the accusation.
UN's Ban and Hanifa Mezoui, DESA's
withholding not shown
If one were a human rights
advocate in Algeria, is it unheard of that one might speak with even
groups
accused of terrorism, in order to gauge the legitimacy of the
government's
crackdown on them? Who should
a human rights advocate in Algeria speak with?
The silence
stands in contrast to 2004, when
Vietnam's complaint about the Montagnard-defending Transnational
Radical
Party was opposed by a number of U.S.-based NGOs. Monday
the US representative explained only that the U.S. wants more
information from
Algeria as well, it's said, from Switzerland in connection with an
application
for refugee status. The U.S. is not defending Mesli or the NGOs, but
appears concerned
with precedent. In 2006, the U.S. moved to disaccredit Sudan-based Islamic
African Relief Agency. In this case, Cuba
said no
more information should be needed. The
UK finally proposed that the vote be held off until Wednesday. It is
currently
scheduled for 10 a.m. on that day. Watch this site.
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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