Why Eleanor Roosevelt is rolling over in her grave

Right before our eyes, the Obama administration is queuing up to dive headfirst into a cesspool.

Late last week, it decided to join the United Nations Human Rights Council, whose primary mission of late has been to curtail freedom of speech.

I perfectly understand what the White House and State Department are thinking. President Barack Obama wants to open dialogues with nations that the Bush administration considered bad actors, including Iran, North Korea, maybe even Cuba. So how can Obama pursue a policy like that and refuse to participate in a council dedicated, in theory, to human rights?

Yes, it’s a dilemma. But Arab states and their allies have hijacked the council — along with the human rights conference it is staging in Geneva later this month.

Right now the Arab states and their coalition partners, including Cuba and Pakistan, are pushing the Human Rights Council to adopt a resolution that defines any critical discussion of Islam as a human rights violation worthy of punishment. This, the resolution’s sponsors argue, is to counteract what it calls “Islamaphobia.” Free speech, as Egypt’s council representative puts it, is “political in nature and not grounded in objectivity.”

As it is, at council meetings, representatives from Arab states and their allies bully anyone who attempts to broach subjects they find offensive.

During one recent session, for example, a speaker brought up a particularly egregious human rights problem: genital mutilation of women. Egypt objected mightily, demanding: “We will not discuss issues related to Sharia law; Islam will not be crucified in this forum. This will not happen!" He thundered on, joined by a compatriot from Pakistan, until the chairman had no choice but to close the debate. Not coincidentally, some Egyptian women are subjected to this procedure, even today.

At another council session more recently, Human Rights Council members praised China for executing criminals and imposing Internet censorship. Iran urged China to tighten censorship to prevent further “defamation of religion.”

Eleanor Roosevelt was instrumental in placing human rights on the United Nation’s agenda more than 60 years ago. Her initiative eventually took form as the Human Rights Commission. But this group grew to be so disreputable — Libya, Cuba and Sudan were among the body’s notable human rights monitors — that by 2004 it had thoroughly embarrassed the U.N. United Nations leaders set out to abolish the commission, saying it “suffers from a credibility deficit that casts doubt on the overall reputation of the United Nations.”

In June 2006, the U.N. established the Human Rights Council in its place. But changing the name did not eliminate the racism, bigotry and xenophobia so endemic among many member states. In short order, the new council grew to be as unsavory as its predecessor. During its short lifetime, the council has distinguished itself by ending its special human rights investigations for Belarus, Cuba, the Congo, Liberia and — most unbelievably — Darfur.

Only one state, in the council’s view, merits a permanent monitor who cannot be dismissed: Israel.

But perhaps the purest expression of the council’s work is the Durban II human rights conference that opens April 20 — almost certain to be an international hate-fest. The conference’s planning committee chairman is from Libya. The other senior officers are from Cuba and Iran. And this is a conference to celebrate human rights?

The conference is dubbed Durban II after the first one, in Durban, South Africa, in 2004. That one turned so quickly into such a racist, anti-Semitic execration that Colin Powell, who was secretary of state at the time, stood up and walked out. The city fathers of Durban refused to host this year’s conference, so it’s being held in Geneva, the council’s home.

In February, the Obama administration sent a delegation to conference preparation talks in Geneva. But after examining the tentative agenda, the Americans had to get up and wash their hands. The agenda follows through on the council’s work and calls for a ban on public criticism of religion. It also attacks Israel relentlessly, calling it a racist state — while holding up Palestinians as blameless victims. Never mind the missiles, the suicide bombers. That is among noxious affronts too numerous to detail here.

After the American delegation left Geneva, the White House announced it would not attend the conference unless the agenda improves. It has not. In fact, the agenda as it stood when the Americans looked at it included a long passage urging member states to “affirm that the Holocaust, which resulted in the murder of one-third of the Jewish people, will forever be a warning of the dangers of hatred, bigotry, racism and prejudice.”

The latest version of the same document simply “recalls that the Holocaust must never be forgotten” — a formulation that does not offend Iran and other Holocaust deniers.

The Obama administration has not yet said for certain whether it plans to attend. My advice: President Obama, tell your people to stay away.

More dispatches from GlobalPost columnist Joel Brinkley:

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