Date: June 19, 2007

UN Human Rights Council a Failure with Today's Action 
Ros-Lehtinen to Seek Amendment to Reduce U.S. Contribution During Floor Debate on Foreign Ops Bill This Week
(WASHINGTON) - U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, condemned the UN Human Rights Council's new governing rules, calling them hopelessly flawed. Earlier today, the Council, formed in 2006 to replace the failed UN Human Rights Commission, voted to end inquiries into human rights abuses in Cuba and Belarus and to make permanent its inquiry of Israel. Ros-Lehtinen said she plans to offer an amendment to the Foreign Operations Appropriations legislation that would prohibit U.S. funding for the Council. The legislation is scheduled for a vote later this week by the U.S. House of Representatives. Earlier this year, the Human Rights Watch World Report warned that the Council has quickly fallen prey to some of the same problems that doomed its predecessor. 
Statement of Ros-Lehtinen:
To its shame, the UN Human Rights Council celebrated its first birthday by giving gifts to Fidel Castro, the authoritarian regime in Belarus, and the enemies of the democratic state of Israel.
Today's embarrassing decision confirms the worst fears about the Council's direction since its inception a year ago, and further hobbles UN efforts to credibly investigate human rights abuses.
The structure and work of the Council, whose membership includes some of the world's most notorious human rights abusers, is hopelessly flawed and thoroughly compromised by gross political manipulation.
The council's obsession with condemning the democratic state of Israel as Palestinians in Gaza are massacred by Islamist terrorists has made it a mockery. By contrast, the Council has failed to condemn genocide in Darfur, the sprawling gulag of North Korea, political and human rights abuses in Cuba and Belarus, and bloody repression in Burma and Zimbabwe.
The United States and other defenders of human rights must refuse to pay for this poisonous charade.