By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unhr1scheinin102609.html
UNITED NATIONS, October 26 -- The president of the UN General Assembly Ali Treki in a statement last month first reported by Inner City Press called homosexuality "not acceptable" to him and, he said, "two billion Muslims." On Monday, UN Special Rapporteur Martin Scheinin presented to the General Assembly's human rights committee a report stating, for example, that
"in Egypt, Government targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex individuals has been a way of shoring up religious legitimacy and signifying to opposition movements that the State is 'the guardian of public virtue.'"
Inner City Press asked Scheinin about fight-back to his report from Egypt and other delegations, including India. Scheinin said that such moments in the Assembly's Third Committee "can't be controlled." Video here, from Minute 20:09.
He said his quote about Egypt was from a "half academic NGO" (the footnote reads, "See Hossam Bahgat, “Explaining Egypt’s Targeting of Gays”, Middle East Report, 23 July 2001" -- that is, before 9/11/01).
Inner City Press asked Scheinin about Treki's quote. Scheinin said that UN is an inter-governmental body with no single voice. He said he only hopes that UN Special Rapporteurs respect rights without regard to gender identify or sexual orientation. He highlighted the threat of sexual humiliation directed at men with homosexual fears, including by "civilized countries." Inner City Press asked, Abu Ghraib? That is one example, Scheinin replied.
As cited in the UN's summary, "India's delegate said that it was unfortunate that the Rapporteur [Scheinin] had redefined the notion of a 'gender perspective.' In trying to give a comprehensive assessment, he had taken the Committee away from a meaningful debate, which was academic in nature and did not fall within the terms of his code of conduct."
This last, "code of conduct," is a code word for seeking to attack the Rapporteur's mandate or even the position going forward. The UN representative of a major NGO last week told Inner City Press the group is concerned that Egypt and Syria and even "some Catholic countries in the EU" will try to use Scheinin's report as a way to attack all of the Rapporteurs and special procedures. But what of pro-Scheinin advocacy? Watch this site.
