Human Rights Watch criticises lack of action on Zimbabwe

Human Rights Watch has criticised the lack of action by the UN Commission on Human Rights regarding alleged abuses in Zimbabwe. The rights group issued a statement at the end of the commission's meeting in Geneva last week. The Zimbabwe Media Monitoring Project reported that the official The Herald newspaper "celebrated Zimbabwe's escape from criticism" at the meeting which ended on Friday 25 April, while reports in the private press "indicated that human rights abuses in the country were as bad as ever". Human Rights Watch criticised the United States and the European Union for not being firm enough about resolutions concerning the situation in Zimbabwe. "Resolutions on Russia, Zimbabwe and Sudan were all less critical than in previous years and ultimately were defeated," Human Rights Watch said. The rights group added that "a powerful grouping of hostile governments [which had] joined the commission in recent years, including Algeria, Libya ... and Zimbabwe, joined with China, Cuba and Russia to oppose several important country initiatives". While "African governments, led by South Africa, worked as a bloc to oppose scrutiny of the human rights situation in Zimbabwe". The Media Monitoring Project said "the success in Geneva of the South African-sponsored 'no-action' resolution that saved Zimbabwe from a United States and European Union motion condemning the country's human rights record, had given the state-controlled media an excuse to ignore the evidence of on-going strife suffered by the country's civilian population". "But it did not explain why the privately owned press all ignored South Africa's defence of the indefensible and the discreditable outcome of the commission's vote," the media watchdog added. Meanwhile, with elections for commission membership set to be held this week in New York, Human Rights Watch has argued that, as a prerequisite for membership of the commission, governments should have: ratified core human rights treaties; complied with their reporting obligations; issued open invitations to UN human rights experts to visit their countries; and not have been condemned recently by the commission for human rights violations.