The United Nations decided on Monday to bar an Arab human rights group for a year after Algeria argued that the group brought in a “known terrorist” to speak on its behalf at a meeting in Geneva, Robert Evans said in Reuters.
The decision was taken without a vote, according to the Reuters, despite reservations voiced by Western countries.
However, at the 54-member Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), an official from the barred Arab group said there was a move to silence its voice.
The Paris-based Arab Commission for Human Rights(ACHR) was condemned by its fiercely critical of Israel and its growing oppression in Arab countries, deprived its right to speak in UN bodies, said the Human Rights Tribune.
Speaking with the body’s Geneva representative Abdel Wahab, he said: “This was a move taken to silence us. We upset everybody, including the Europeans and Americans by criticising them too, so there was no one to stand up for us.”
The suspension of recognition, as Reuters reports, formally known as “Consultative status” was recommended in January by the UN’s 19-nation Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) in New York.
The ACHR will now be barred from the Human Rights Council, which is a major focus from the UN.
The Arab Commission is reportedly founded in 1998 and run by 15 human rights lawyers who mainly live in Arab countries, although some are based in western Europe.
In a complaint to the UN’s 19-nation Committee, as Robert Evans wrote in the Reuters, Algeria said the Arab Human Right Group violated rules last year by putting up as a speaker Swiss-based lawyer Rachid Mesli, against whom Algiers has issued an arrest warrant as a member of an “armed terrorist group”.
Hani said Mesli was a lawyer who fled Algeria after being prosecuted for defending members of the now defunct Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) which fought the state in the 1990s.
However, western countries expressed their concerns the Committee has increasingly acted to keep out genuine NGOs in recent years.
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