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The rights activists said the U.N. council had the unique power to ring the alarm and galvanize the world into action

Iraqi Minorities Seek UN Emergency Session



  • Videos of speakers at rally
  • Photos from rally
  • Audio from the press conference (Featuring Hillel Neuer, Executive Director, UN Watch; Breen Tahseen, son of head of Yazidi community; Ramzi Wahida, member of the Christian Iraqi community and Maryam Wahida, member of the Christian Iraqi community)
GENEVA, – At a rally in Geneva today, an international coalition of activists launched an appeal for the U.N. Human Rights Council to convene an emergency session on the plight of minority groups in Iraq, including the Yazidis and Christians.

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The rights activists said the U.N. council had the unique power to ring the alarm and galvanize the world into action. The executive director of the monitoring group U.N. Watch, Hillel Neuer, said the activists were appealing to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay to call for the special session. He said the rights council could mobilize action to protect vulnerable populations in Iraq against mass killings. Breen Tahseen, the son of Yazidi leader Prince Tahseen Saeed Bek, said the world is not doing enough to halt the "genocide." He blamed international inaction for a recent massacre. "We call upon the free world to immediately act," said Tahseen. A member of the community of Iraqi Christians in Geneva, Maryam Wahida, described the conditions under which tens of thousands of displaced Christians were living in Dohuk, Kurdistan. She said they needed shelter, food and medicine. She said the Christian population has been decimated and there was no future for them in Iraq. “Very, very few of them still have hope and want to go back to their houses. But, most of them want to leave now. They just want to go to a place where it is safe. That is all what they want - to be safe and have a decent place to live,” said Wahida.


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UN Watch -- Bio and Archives

UN Watch is a Geneva-based human rights organization founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its Charter. It is accredited as a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Special Consultative Status to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and as an Associate NGO to the UN Department of Public Information (DPI).


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