UN rights chief criticizes states for human rights abuse

(September 13, 2010) The United Nations' human rights chief criticised some of the world body's most powerful states on Monday, rapping Russia for failing to bring to justice the killers of journalists and rights campaigners, and China for cracking down on rights activists. Addressing the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, Navi Pillay also hit at several Muslim countries for harassing civil rights activists and at France for its expulsion of Roma or gypsies to their native Balkans. The United States also came under fire from the South African former high court judge over reports that it operated a programme of targeted killings against its own citizens outside the country who are suspected of involvement in terrorism. U.N. officials said the High Commissioner's strong remarks, delivered to a body including many of the countries she named, marked a ratcheting up of her determination to point to alleged abuses wherever they occurred. Civil society groups have been hit by laws and other measures restricting their action in many states including Bahrain, Belarus, China, Egypt, Libya, Panama, Syria and Tunisia, she said. Threats and assaults against journalists, trade unionists and community organisers in other countries such as Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zimbabwe have been compounded by competition over natural resources, she added. Pillay delivered her speech at the opening of the three-week autumn session of the 4-year-old body, created to replace a 60-year-old rights commission which had become bogged down in political wrangling and was widely seen as ineffective.