GENEVA, 4 Apr: The U.N.’s leading human rights body agreed Thursday to measures aimed at putting pressure on Myanmar and Iran, whose governments have been accused of using violence against their own people.
\nThe Human Rights Council, made up of 47 member countries, backed by consensus a measure that calls on governments to avoid exporting or selling jet fuel to Myanmar if they believe its ruling military junta might use the fuel to violate human rights in the war-wracked southeast Asian country.
\nIt also urged a halt to the illegal transfer of weapons, munitions and other military equipment to Myanmar.
\nAn independent expert commissioned by the council warned last month that Myanmar\u2019s military government is escalating violence against civilians as it faces more setbacks on the battlefield against pro-democracy and ethnic armed groups.
\nThe military seized power more than three years ago from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, triggering widespread nonviolent opposition that was met with deadly force. The repression gave birth to armed resistance and embroiled the country in a civil war.
\nAdvocacy group Amnesty International has repeatedly called out illicit shipments of fuel to Myanmar and in January pointed to shipping data that pointed to efforts to avoid sanctions in the aviation fuel supply chain. It said at least seven shipments of the fuel went to Myanmar last year, with direct links to a storage unit in Vietnam.
\nVietnam, which currently holds one of the seats in the council, did not stand in the way of the council\u2019s consensus.
\n\u201cThis is an important message from the U.N.\u2019s main human rights body that business as usual is not acceptable when supplying jet fuel to those who use airstrikes to commit war crimes,\u201d said Iniyan Ilango, Amnesty\u2019s representative to the U.N. in Geneva.
\nHe said it was \u201ca good start\u201d but the U.N. Security Council should impose a suspension of the direct and indirect shipments of aviation fuel to Myanmar, saying such a move would have an important impact on the ground because it would help prevent the military from continuing its airstrikes, \u201cmany of which have constituted war crimes.\u201d
\nThe decision on Myanmar came as the council was wrapping up its first session of the year, which began on Feb. 26, with action on more than 40 resolutions on issues as diverse as rights of the child, the environment and human rights, and prevention of genocide, and rights situations in council like Sudan, Belarus and North Korea.
\nOne resolution expected to come up in Friday\u2019s session finale calls on countries to stop sending weapons to Israel amid its military campaign in Gaza that has led to the killings of nearly 33,000 Palestinians in response to the murderous attacks in Israel by armed militants on Oct. 7.
\nIn other action, the council voted 24-8, with 15 abstentions, to adopt a resolution to extend by a year investigations of human rights in Iran by two separate teams \u2014 one led by a \u201cspecial rapporteur\u201d looking into the overall rights situation, and another by a \u201cfact-finding mission\u201d focusing on rights violations related to protests since September 2022.
\nMembers of the mission told the council last month that Iran\u2019s government was responsible for \u201cphysical violence\u201d that led to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who died in a hospital after her arrest by the country\u2019s morality police over allegedly not wearing her hijab to the liking of the authorities.
\nAmini\u2019s death sparked huge protests and a months-long security crackdown killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GENEVA, 4 Apr: The U.N.’s leading human rights body agreed Thursday to measures aimed at putting pressure on Myanmar and Iran, whose governments have been accused of using violence against their own people. The Human Rights Council, made up of 47 member countries, backed by consensus a measure that calls on governments to avoid exporting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-238274","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238274"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238274\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}