Malaysia: UN rights office urges review of colonial-era Sedition Act

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. UN Photo

16 September 2014 – The United Nations human rights office today urged Malaysian authorities to immediately stop investigations and prosecutions under a 1948 law that curbed free speech and freedom of expression in the South-east Asian nation.

“We are concerned about the recent increase in the use of the 1948 Sedition Act to arrest and prosecute people for their peaceful expression of opinion in Malaysia,” the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said in Geneva.

Since the beginning of August, at least 19 people, including religious leaders, civil society actors, political opposition members and activists, a university professor and a journalist have been charged or placed under investigation for sedition, according to the Office of the High Commissioner (OHCHR).

Most recently, an investigation was opened against Edmund Bon, a human rights and constitutional lawyer, for comments in an article on the legal use of the word “Allah,” which were critical of current restrictions on members of the other religious groups using the term.

The UN right office said it was also concerned that the authorities in Malaysia are arbitrarily applying the Sedition Act to silence critical voices.

The Act is “overly broad and does not outline well-defined criteria for sedition,” Mr. Colville said speaking on behalf of the OHCHR.

“We call on the Government to quickly initiate a promised review of the Act and to repeal or amend it in line with its international human rights obligations.”

(Sources - http://www.un.org)

U.N. backs gay rights for first time ever ....

(AP) GENEVA - The United Nations endorsed the rights of gay, lesbian and transgender people for the first time ever Friday, passing a resolution hailed as historic by the U.S. and other backers and decried by African and Islamic countries.

The declaration was cautiously worded, expressing "grave concern" about abuses suffered by people because of their sexual orientation, and commissioning a global report on discrimination of gays. But activists called it a remarkable shift on an issue that has divided the global body for decades, and credited the Obama administration's push for gay rights at home and abroad with helping win support for the resolution.

"This represents a historic moment to highlight the human rights abuses and violations that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people face around the world based solely on who they are and whom they love," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a statement.

Following tense negotiations, members of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Council narrowly voted in favor of the declaration put forward by South Africa, with 23 votes in favor and 19 against.

Backers included the United States, the European Union, Brazil and other Latin American countries. Those against included Russia, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and Pakistan. China, Burkina Faso and Zambia abstained, Kyrgyzstan didn't vote and Libya was earlier suspended from the rights body.

The resolution expressed "grave concern at acts of violence and discrimination, in all regions of the world, committed against individuals because of their sexual orientation and gender identity."

More importantly, activists said, it also established a formal U.N. process to document human rights abuses against gays, including discriminatory laws and acts of violence. According to Amnesty International, consensual same-sex relations are illegal in 76 countries worldwide, while harassment and discrimination are common in many more.

"The Human Rights Council has taken a first bold step into territory previously considered off-limits," said Graeme Reid, director of the LGBT Rights program at Human Rights Watch. "We hope this groundbreaking step will spur greater efforts to address the horrible abuses perpetrated on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity."

"Today's resolution breaks the silence that has been maintained for far too long," said John Fisher of the gay rights advocacy group ARC International. "It's clear that the resolution will serve as an entry point for further debate at the United Nations."

The opportunity to do so comes next spring. Friday's resolution called for a panel discussion "to have constructive, informed and transparent dialogue on the issue of discriminatory laws and practices and acts of violence against" gays, lesbians and transgender people.

The prospect of having their laws scrutinized in this way went too far for many of the council's 47-member states.

Speaking on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Pakistan said the resolution had "nothing to do with fundamental human rights."

"We are seriously concerned at the attempt to introduce to the United Nations some notions that have no legal foundation," said Zamir Akram, Pakistan's envoy to the U.N. in Geneva.

Nigeria claimed the proposal went against the wishes of most Africans. A diplomat from the northwest African state of Mauritania called the resolution "an attempt to replace the natural rights of a human being with an unnatural right."

Indicating that Washington plans to keep up the pressure on this issue, Clinton said the U.S. "will continue to stand up for human rights wherever there is inequality and we will seek more commitments from countries to join this important resolution."

One of her senior diplomats, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary Daniel Baer, told reporters the Obama administration had chosen what he described as a "course of progress" on gay rights, both domestically and internationally.

In March, the U.S. issued a nonbinding declaration in favor of gay rights that gained the support of more than 80 countries at the U.N. This has coincided with domestic efforts to end the ban on gays openly serving in the U.S. military and discrimination against gays in federal housing.

Asked what good the resolution would do for gays and lesbians in countries that opposed the resolution, Baer said it was a signal "that there are many people in the international community who stand with them, and who support them, and that change will come."

"It's a historic method of tyranny to make you feel that you are alone," he said. "One of the things that this resolution does for people everywhere, particularly LGBT people everywhere, is remind them that they are not alone."

(Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/17/501364/main20072040.shtml#ixzz1PmhLO49B)

UN: Renewable energies can meet world’s power needs

By David Worthington | May 9, 2011, 5:35 PM PDT

The United Nations has found that renewable energy alone can meet global power needs - countering the burgeoning belief that nuclear power is the only viable solution.

Today, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation (SRREN). The report painted a rosy future for renewable energy technologies.

IPCC’s working group of 120 researchers determined that nearly 80 percent of electricity could be generated through renewable sources by mid-century, eliminating between 220 to 560 Gigatonnes of carbon dioxide pollution by 2050.

This shift would hold the world’s temperature down two degrees Celsius, which meets the goal of the UN’s Cancun Agreements. The energy mix studied by IPCC includes forms of bioenergy, geothermal energy, hydropower, solar, and wind.

“With consistent climate and energy policy support, renewable energy sources can contribute substantially to human well-being by sustainably supplying energy and stabilizing the climate,” said professor Ottmar Edenhofer, the group’s current co-chair.

The report acknowledged political disagreement among developed economies vis-à-vis developing economies, and seeks to help policy makers understand that there are solutions for a collective way forward.

“What is unique about this assessment is that the IPCC allows us to draw on and bring together a broad spectrum of experts on each of the technologies reviewed in collaboration with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. It represents a systemic, broad, impartial and state of knowledge report on the present and future potential of a low carbon, more resource efficient energy path,” Edenhofer said.

Other key findings were:

• The energy potential of renewable technologies exceeds current global demand.
• Renewable energy capacity grew in 2009 across also categories in spite of the global economic downturn.
• Developing nations account for over 50 percent of the world’s current renewable energy capacity.
• Most reviewed scenarios showed that renewables would exceed the low carbon energy provided by nuclear power or fossil fuel power plants equipped with carbon capture technologies.
• There is no “one size fits all” policy for encouraging renewable power development.
• Some renewable power technologies can stand on their own today.
• Renewable energy solutions are not the only solution to reduce carbon emissions.

The IPCC working group also offered projection for different forms of renewable energy. See here There’s also a brief video overview of the findings.

“What is unique about this assessment is that the IPCC allows us to draw on and bring together a broad spectrum of experts on each of the technologies reviewed in collaboration with scientists studying energy systems as a whole. It represents a systemic, broad, impartial and state of knowledge report on the present and future potential of a low carbon, more resource efficient energy path,” Edenhofer said.

The report stands in contrast to recent comments made by public figures such as Microsoft CEO Bill Gates who endorsed nuclear power at a conference in New York last week. Gates dismissed renewable technologies as “cute,” but unable to meet energy demands.

Gates noted that there is a lot of room for innovation in nuclear reactor designs. “The room to do things differently is quite dramatic,” he said. Gates is not a disinterested party: He has invested in nuclear power company TerraPower.

(Reference - http://www.smartplanet.com