High Commissioner statement to Security Council on Minorities in the Middle East

Mr. President,
Secretary General,
Distinguished Members of the Council,

Our discussion today – which we welcome and thank you for, Mr President – is a discussion both about tolerance, that breadth of view which acknowledges and embraces the differences between peoples; and its opposite: a maniacal ideology imposing conformity, harsh and cruel.

The Preamble of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court begins: "Conscious that all peoples are united by common bonds, their cultures pieced together in a shared heritage, and concerned that this delicate mosaic may be shattered at any time..."

That mosaic of our heritage is our only hope for permanent peace in the world. The alternative – sharply delineated groups doomed to confrontation – will destroy us. If we are to survive, we need pluralism: societies that are enriched by exchange and grounded in respect.

It is easy to portray the Middle East now as exceptionally fragmented. But in reality the history of the region is marked by long-standing acceptance of multiple identities. The dramatic crises and atrocities that we see today have been fanned into flame by discrimination, and by deliberate failures to respect equality and human rights.

In Syria, for example, the violent suppression of peaceful protests, and then civil war, is forcing a retreat by many into the shelter of ethnic and religious identities. The once benign, even celebrated, differences between communities are now, tragically, being carved into bitter and lethal divisions, as the country continues to break apart. Many communities have suffered appalling violence and targeted attacks by all sides, often because of their religious or ethnic affiliation.

As the chaos and violence of Syria bleeds across international borders, it has birthed Da'esh, a totalitarian-minded takfiri group determined to silence all dissent. Iraq’s exceptionally rich cultural landscape includes communities that have lived in the region since the opening lines of history. But two weeks ago, an investigative mission by my Office found that vicious attacks against the Yezidis by Da’esh may amount to genocide. Other communities, as our report also shows, have suffered great violence – including crimes against humanity and war crimes – at the hand of non-State actors and State-affiliated forces. Ancient and deeply significant monuments have been ravaged. All this we condemn.

Da’esh is an abomination. An intricately interwoven social fabric in Syria and Iraq is giving way to the demented obliteration of any difference, any choice not in conformity with the takfiri world view – which is itself impossibly thin. And yet, in what amounts to a painful paradox, a most terrible irony, Da’esh may be more accepting of diverse ethnic origins when it comes to its own members – so long as those same members act in accordance with takfiri ideology – than many States are, when it comes to their own citizens. And how can that be?

Mr. President,

The international community’s attention to the human rights of minorities is too often both partial and sporadic.
Partial, in the sense that States have often focused primarily on communities with whom they share specific cultural ties – overlooking abuses of other marginalized communities, and brushing away concerns regarding discriminated groups in their own countries.

Sporadic, because the rights of minorities are often highlighted only after the outbreak of extreme violence – even though that eruption is virtually always preceded by years of exclusion; disregard for linguistic and religious rights; and obstacles to full participation in the political, social, cultural and economic life of the State.

If we attend to minority rights only after slaughter has begun, then we have already failed.

Fanaticism always finds oxygen and flourishes where tolerance, and the universal standards of human rights, are battered. It grows in States that betray their people; that fail to respect their own Constitutions; that do not embrace, genuinely, the ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity of their societies. In States where the voice and participation of all members of society is smothered. In States which attack civil society activists – whose work, ironically, is the very best antidote against the toxin of extremism; to immunize properly against further radicalism, human rights defenders must be promoted and defended, not imprisoned and tortured.

Sadly, there are many such States, in the Middle East and other regions, and by their actions they fertilise the soil of intolerance, where extremism takes root.

The UN Network on Racial Discrimination and Minorities, which my Office coordinates, can help Member States develop strategies to open opportunities to marginalized minority groups, and to build-in greater protection for their human rights.

It is only by insisting on the dignity and worth of every human being, securing their rights and their space on this Earth properly and meaningfully, that we will all survive.

Mr President,

The delicate mosaic is being shattered, and this Security Council must take action unanimously and decisively to end the conflicts and refer Iraq and Syria to the ICC. It must end the fighting in Yemen, Libya and other countries too. Or are we going to have to wait until the strength of the victims, of all humanity, to produce more tears has sapped; when finally only the stones can weep? And what good will it be then? What good will it be to all of us, if action never comes, or arrives far too late to be effective?

Without supreme and joint resolution now, the common bond will soon also disappear, along with the cultures stitched by time into one heritage – a debt so dreadful and malignant to our children, I hope it is one we cannot bear to inflict.