Pz-Owned

UN Watch ambushes Libya at the UN Durban Review Conference preparatory meeting. Libya, for reasons that, depending on your perspective, are either inexplicable or all too explicable, was chosen to chair the chair the preparatory committee, was presiding when it recognized UN Watch, an NGO which "monitors the performance of the United Nations by the yardstick of its own Charter."

Normally, it seems to spend its time getting abused by the authoritarian regime of the week for actually caring about human rights. But here they turned the tables beautifully, turning the microphone over to a victim of Libyan torture who demanded to know how that nation's country could claim to lead the fight against discrimination when it had, he claimed, targeted him simply to scapegoat foreigners (the doctor was Palestinian).

Unsurprisingly, the Libyan ambassador eventually succeeded in shutting down the discussion. But still, it made for a nice spectacle. And since UN Watch tipped off the local media, it even got everything filmed.

So score one point for the good guys; and for suppressed victims of violence having their voices heard (if only for a little while).