Thursday, March 16, 2006

Anschluss Watch 2

At the UN Economic and Social Council Commission on the Status of Women, 41 countries voted in favour of a resolution to facilitate the return of all refugees and displaced Palestinian women and children to their homes.
And Canada and the US voted against it.

"Welcoming the report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights that addresses the issue of Palestinian pregnant women giving birth at Israeli checkpoints owing to denial of access by Israel to hospitals, with a view to ending this Israeli practice".

"Israel's representative said she recognized the difficult situation faced by Palestinian women, but the text failed to assess the multiple causes of those difficulties : If terrorism did not exist, Palestinian women would live without the detriment of security checkpoints and the security fence. She called on the Commission to vote against the text."

In favour: Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia, Botswana, Burkina Faso, China, Congo, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Gabon, Germany, Ghana, Guinea, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mauritius, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, South Africa, Sudan, Suriname, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United Republic of Tanzania.

Against: Canada, United States

This valiant siding with the US in refusing to allow Palestinian women to go home represents Canada's first UN vote since the Cons took office.

Link at UN, but I first read about it at the Gazetteer

2 comments:

Bazz said...

Why are we on the wrong side of a womens' rights issue that even Iran has gotten itself on the right side of? I do acknowledge that the Iranians may have voted the way they did merely to tweak Israel, but still... Yet more evidence that Stephen Harper is a craven twit.

Alison said...

I read it as straight sucking up to the US. Canada previously abstained on a similarly worded resolution against Israel, as did Nicaragua again this time.
I get why Israel protests any censure of its actions that doesn't also take Palestinian reprisals into account even if I don't agree with it as an argument. But if that was Canada's position, they should have abstained again instead of using it as an excuse to suck up to the US.

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