Third World NGOs attack U.N. rights review "farce"

By Robert Evans

GENEVA (Reuters) - Campaign bodies from developing countries on Wednesday attacked the United Nations new-fledged universal human rights review process, with some saying it was quickly descending into farce.

But envoys of Morocco, one of the countries reviewed since the procedure kicked off on Monday, rejected the complaint, arguing that they had been open to criticism based on real facts and were ready to use it to advance human rights at home.

"The Arab and African countries are lining up to praise each other...It is an insult to the intelligence of the peoples they are supposed to represent," said Saida Drissi Amrany, President of the Association of Moroccan Women.

And Rafendi Djamin of the Indonesian NGO (non-governmental organisation) Coalition for the Advancement of Human Rights, said a block mentality was dominating the hearings, "pushing it towards something like farce."

The process, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), was set up within the two-year-old Human Rights Council -- which replaced a discredited earlier body -- and is supposed to scrutinise the rights records of all U.N. members over the next four years.

In the UPR, the 47 member countries of the Council -- itself viewed by critics as having fallen under control of a bloc of Islamic and African countries supported by Cuba, China and Russia -- are supposed to discuss reports from each country.

In the three hours allotted to each, they are also meant to probe complaints that have come to other U.N. rights bodies and suggest how governments can improve their performance.