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U.N. Rights Experts Deplore Trump Order on Refugees U.N. Leader Says Trump Order ‘Violates Our Basic Principles’
(about 1 hour later)
GENEVA — Five United Nations human rights experts on Wednesday condemned President Trump’s temporary ban on the admission of refugees and of citizens from seven mainly Muslim countries, describing it as discrimination and a breach of international human rights obligations. UNITED NATIONS — The new secretary general of the United Nations said Wednesday that the Trump administration’s visa ban for citizens of seven Muslim-majority nations “violates our basic principles” and would do little to stem the threat of terrorism.
The executive order that Mr. Trump issued on Friday is “clearly discriminatory” and has led to increased stigmatization of Muslim communities, the experts said in a joint statement. “This is not the way to best protect the United States or any other country in relation to the serious concerns that exist of the possibilities of terrorist infiltration,” said the secretary general, António Guterres, in his first detailed remarks on President Trump’s executive order, which also suspended Syrian refugee resettlement. “I think these measures should be removed sooner rather than later.”
They said the order, which they described as “deeply troubling,” raised the risk that refugees and asylum seekers may be forcibly returned without proper assessment to places where they face possible torture or ill treatment, in violation of international human rights law. Mr. Guterres, who took over as leader of the United Nations a month ago, was for 10 years the head of the United Nations refugee agency. He said Syrians today had the most urgent need for protection.
The signers of the statement included François Crépeau, the United Nations expert on migration issues; Mutuma Ruteere, who works on racism; Nils Melzer, on torture; Ahmed Shaheed, on freedom of religion; and Ben Emmerson, a British lawyer and rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism. “I strongly hope that the U.S. will be able to re-establish its very solid refugee protection in resettlement and I hope that the Syrians will not be excluded in that process,” Mr. Guterres told reporters at the United Nations headquarters.
“In the midst of the world’s greatest migration crisis since World War II, this is a significant setback for those who are obviously in need of international protection,” they said. The secretary general stopped short of calling Mr. Trump’s executive order illegal under international law. But asked whether it violates international obligations, he said: “I think that those measures indeed violate our basic principles. And I think that they are not effective if the objective is to indeed avoid terrorists to enter the United States.”
The United States, they said, has an obligation to provide protection for people fleeing persecution. They also noted the American role in the wars in Iraq and Syria in arguing that Americans have a responsibility to offer refuge for those fleeing those conflicts. Mr. Guterres is under enormous pressure. On the one hand, he must speak out against discrimination, in keeping with the rules enshrined in international conventions. On the other, he needs to avoid alienating the Trump administration, now in charge of the United Nations’ biggest financial backer.
The statement was one of the most robust criticisms from representatives of the United Nations on the Trump administration’s action. On Monday, the organization’s top human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, condemned the executive order as illegal and “meanspirited.” Mr. Guterres declined to comment about the White House’s reported threats to cut financial support to the United Nations, saying he did not want to prejudge what has not yet been announced. “When you talk too much about things that have not happened, you trigger the happening of those things,” he said.
Other United Nations representatives and agencies have been more circumspect in responding to the actions of the new American president, who has disparaged the United Nations as a “social club” and may be considering significant cuts in financial contributions to the organization. He said he had had “a very constructive discussion” with the new United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki R. Haley.
The new secretary general, António Guterres, who led the United Nations refugee agency for 10 years, has said little about Mr. Trump’s actions. Speaking at a news conference on Monday after an African Union summit meeting in Ethiopia, Mr. Guterres noted that the United States had a tradition of refugee protection. “What I am doing is to do everything I can to prove the added value of the U.N., to recognize the U.N. needs reforms, to be totally committed to those reforms,” Mr. Guterres said.
“I strongly hope that measures that were taken will be only temporary,” he said. “I strongly hope that refugee protection will become again high in the agenda of the United States of America.” In his view, he said, that approach is “the best way to get, indeed, the support of all member states, including the United States of America and the new administration.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Guterres issued a more generic statement, not singling out the United States but lamenting what he described as “decisions that around the world have been undermining the integrity of the international refugee protection regime.” Mr. Guterres had been more restrained in his criticism of the Trump administration’s travel ban than some others at the United Nations. The organization’s top human rights official, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, said in a Twitter post earlier this week that Mr. Trump’s order flouted international law.
The United Nations refugee agency has estimated that Mr. Trump’s immigration order has stalled the entry of 800 refugees since it took effect on Friday. Thousands more people are now deeply worried about the uncertainty they face. On Wednesday, five independent human rights experts for the United Nations also criticized the Trump administration in a statement that described the new American policy as a discriminatory action that had stigmatized Muslim communities.
The countries affected by Mr. Trump’s order are Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.
Mr. Guterres, in his comments on Wednesday, also warned of a backlash.
“When we adopt measures that spread anxiety and anger,” he said, “we help trigger the kind of recruitment mechanism that these organizations are doing everywhere in the world.”