UNHCHR to Debate Sexual Orientation Resolution
IslamOnline.net
& News Agencies, March 12, 2005
By Ælfwine Mischler, IOL Staff Writer
 |
| Dr. Hassan
fears that if the draft is endorsed “a great deal of pious and good
work in the last many years by pro-family NGOs would have gone to
waste.” |
CAIRO—The UN High Commission on
Human Rights (HCHR) will debate during its 61st session, to kick off in Geneva
on Monday, March 14, a long-delayed controversial draft resolution on sexual
orientation.
The six-week session will begin with a “high-level
segment” for three-and-a-half days, featuring speeches by high government
officials and by heads of UN agencies and intergovernmental organizations,
according to the HCHR Web site.
The 53 members of the HCHR, the principal human rights
organ of the United Nations, will then move through the busy agenda.
The controversial draft “calls upon all States to
promote and protect the human rights of all persons regardless of their sexual
orientation.”
Dr. Farooq Hassan, an expert in international law and
human rights and a former member of the HCHR, told IslamOnline.net, “If it [UNHCHR]
endorses the Sexual Orientation Resolution, I feel that a great deal of pious
and good work in the last many years by pro-family NGOs would have gone to
waste.”
Islam forbids any homosexual or lesbian activity and
allows marriage only between a man and a woman.
Concerned Women for America, a pro-family NGO, also
echoed similar concerns.
The advocacy group said, on its Web site, that “there
is no definition for sexual orientation, opening the door for pedophilia and
other aberrant sexual activities and preferences to be considered a human
right. If they are human rights, they cannot be outlawed and must be protected
and accommodated by governments.”
The draft was first proposed by Brazil in 2003 and has
twice been deferred to the next HCHR session, according to the Web site of the
HCHR.
In April 2003, a filibuster led by Muslim states such as
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, by introducing many amendments, made a vote
impossible.
Last year, United Families International, a pro-family
NGO, championed an e-mail campaign against the draft and it was withdrawn for
lack of support, the UFI spokesman told IOL.
Other pro-family NGOs also lobbied against the
resolution.
Rights Violations
The agenda of the HCHR session also includes violations
of human rights in Arab occupied territories (Palestine and the Golan
Heights), in Iraq, in Darfur, and in Afghanistan, as well as in other
countries.
Among other topics are human rights and the fight against
terrorism; violations of the rights of Arabs and Muslims; and combating
defamation of religion.
Dr. Hassan told IOL that the session “will really tell
if the perceived progress of human rights regime internationally has any
tangible existence.”
He said a matter of high significance for the vast
Islamic populations “is whether the landmark UN Declaration of 1968 on the
Rights of the Occupied Territories is still operative. Or has it been swept
away by the most recent ‘evolution’ of the war against terrorism?”
The international law and human rights expert regretted
that “Muslims the world over are at the receiving end of this political
campaign and it is up to the highest watchdog of international HR law to show
the world what has gone wrong.”
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