Interview with High Commissioner Volker Türk on…

During an interview with UN News, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the High Commissioner said, "what's happening in Gaza is beyond devastating," and stressed that human rights and international and entire law "are violated on a daily basis in the most gravest of forms."

He said it was "absolutely critical that accountability is part of any future arrangement, because we know that if impunity reigns and if the facts are not told, and if truth is not told, we will have grievances going on and on and on."

Türk said, "I'm very worried about the risk of atrocity crimes. I'm very worried about the situation in the West Bank in particular, because what we see is we since the 7th of October, over some 271 Palestinians have been killed, including 69 children. I'm worried about what this means in the future. I'm also extremely, extremely shocked by the dehumanizing language that I have seen, both from Hamas but also from Israeli military and political leaders."

Turning to Ukraine, he said, "some of the communities, especially near the front lines, have not been able to get access to electricity again. We have the ongoing killings. We have serious human rights violations, in particular torture. That's happening when whenever there are whenever Russian forces are able to occupy territory. And yes, we just need to make sure that, again, accountability is going to be served."

The High Commissioner pointed to previous situations where justice was achieved after the end of a conflict. He said, "we have seen in so many other situations, if you look just at Bosnia and the wars in former Yugoslavia, but also Rwanda and other situations, you actually see people getting caught."

On women's rights, he spoke of a pushback on gender and women's rights and said, "if you look at Afghanistan, where you have basically a de facto authority that essentially systematically persecutes women because of and girls because of who they are."

Türk said, "we really need to find ways and means to stop this. But it's not just it's not just there. We have also very serious issues in Yemen. We have it in in many in PNG, Papua New Guinea, for example, Iran and a few other places where indeed you have such systematic discrimination against women."

On hate speech and disinformation, he said, "there is sometimes business interests that drive hatred. And we need to cut down on that. Actually, we need to call it out. We need to show these business models. And we also need to find ways and means, again, to bring humanity back to its core and to its fundaments. And I wish the messages of peace, of healing, of actually transforming hatred into positive actions gained more traction, both in media, but also in the discussions."

To conclude, the High Commissioner said, "we can never give up hope and we can never give up our work. And I think within the tragedies of today, we can also see what the elements are that actually bring and get us out of this, away from this precipice and let us be hopeful for a future that is more peaceful and also more embracing of the other."

10 December 2023 marks the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which aims to infuse societies with equality, fundamental freedoms and justice. It enshrines the rights of all human beings and is a global blueprint for international, national, and local laws and policies and a bedrock of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.