Iran & Syria

NEWSMAX

Top U.S. Aid Recipients Back Iran at U.N.

Of the 10 nations that received the most American foreign aid in fiscal 2011, only one voted for a U.S.-backed draft resolution condemning Iran for human rights abuses.

The resolution, introduced by Canada, cited Iran for abuses including torture, excessive use of the death penalty — including public executions and the executions of minors —violent suppression of political opponents, and discrimination against women and religious minorities.

The resolution passed by a vote of 86 to 32. But among the top 10 recipients of U.S. aid, only Israel voted in favor of the resolution.

Afghanistan and Pakistan, the two biggest aid recipients this year, voted against the resolution. Six other big recipients – Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, and South Africa — abstained, and Iraq did not vote.

Some countries that declined to support the resolution indicated that they did so due to their opposition to “country-specific” resolutions — critical resolutions focusing on a single country.

But Hillel Neuer, executive director of the monitoring group U.N. Watch, accused those nations of double standards, CNS News reported.

“These countries are being completely hypocritical because they are the same ones who annually sponsor or support 20 one-sided resolutions against Israel in the U.N. General Assembly, having made a virtual cottage industry of passing ‘country-specific’ resolutions against the Jewish state,” he said.

Arab and Muslim countries generally did not support the resolution. But interestingly, Libya and Tunisia — which have new administrations following uprisings in the Arab Spring — both voted in favor of the resolution.

Among the countries opposing it were Russia, China, and India.

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Syria,

under fire for a brutal suppression of anti-government protesters that has cost more than 3,500 lives, nevertheless has been reappointed to a United Nations committee dealing with — incredibly — human rights.

Syria remains a member of the 29-member Committee on Conventions and Recommendations, which examines human rights violations within UNESCO’s areas of concern, including education, science, and communications.