UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet is very hard on Italy, "we intend to send personnel to Italy and Austria to evaluate the strong increase in acts of violence and racism".
Michelle Bachelet argues that governments' efforts to push back foreigners do not resolve the migration crisis and only cause new hostilities, criticizing border walls, separating immigrant families and inciting hatred against migrants.
"These policies offer no long-term solutions to anyone, only more hostility, misery, suffering and chaos ".
The High Commissioner does not cite concrete examples, but a longer version of his speech presented to the Council refers to countries including the United States, Hungary and Italy. In early September, Bachelet took office, succeeding Jordanian UN diplomat Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, known for his highly confrontational approach towards some of these countries.
"The Italian government has denied the entry of NGO rescue boats. This kind of political attitude and other recent developments have devastating consequences for many already vulnerable people ", reiterated Michelle Bachelet urging the European Union to" undertake humanitarian search and rescue operations for people crossing the Mediterranean "and to" guarantee the access to asylum and human rights protection in the European Union".
Matteo Salvini's response was immediate, “we do not accept lessons, we will evaluate whether to cut the funds”. The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “inappropriate, unjust and unfounded alarm.
The Foreign Minister, Enzo Moavero Milanesi, said he was sorry for "the UN initiative against Italy" on the rights of migrants and judged "the terminology used and the epithets intended for Italy as inappropriate and unfounded". Salvini increases the dose, UN biased, we do not accept lessons “In recent years Italy has welcomed 700 thousand immigrants, many of them illegal immigrants, and has never received collaboration from other European countries. So we do not accept lessons from anyone, much less from the UN which confirms itself as biased, unnecessarily expensive and uninformed: the police deny there is a racism alarm. Before carrying out checks on Italy, the UN should investigate its member states that ignore elementary rights such as freedom and equality between men and women ”.
"We will evaluate the cut of funds at the UN" The UN "is an organization that costs billions of euros, to which Italy gives more than 100 million a year in contributions and we will discuss with the allies the usefulness of continuing to give these 100 million euros to finance waste, food, robberies for an organization that would like to come and give lessons to Italians and then has countries that practice torture and the death penalty ”. Moavero, on the other hand, proved more of a possibility: we will “evaluate” the hypothesis, advanced yesterday by Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, to review the funds destined for the UN. "We know that the organization periodically has some tug-of-war with some member states, some have left certain agencies", observed Moavero Milanesi, alluding to the choice of the United States and Israel to leave UNESCO, "but we have not yet reached this point".
Domenico Ferrara in Il Giornale, traces the profile of the High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet.
The NGO Un Watch, which has the task of monitoring what happens inside the UN headquarters, has expressed numerous doubts on the lack of transparency and speed that accompanied the election of Bachelet.
A few examples? During her visit to Cuba in early 2018, Bachelet was heavily criticized by members of her own party and human rights activists for meeting with General Raúl Castro while snubbing members of Cuba's peaceful opposition. . At the request of the opposition leader, Rosa María Payá, to meet with dissidents for human rights, Bachelet replied spades, indeed, she did not reply at all. Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez also pointed the finger at her, accusing her of "closeness to Havana marked by an ideological nostalgia that obscures her vision and her ability to recognize the lack of rights that mark the lives of Cubans" and adding that "From his mouth there has never been any condemnation of the political repression conducted systematically by Raúl Castro, even when the victims are women." Harsh accusations for one who has now taken on the heavy role of defender of the weak.
When Fidel Castro died he still remembers A Watch - Bachelet called him "a leader for dignity and social justice in Cuba and Latin America". Praises also expressed for Chavez for "his deepest love for his people and the challenges of our region to eradicate poverty and generate a better life for all".
And again, in the NGO report, the refusal to condemn the Maduro regime is then cited, insisting instead "that Venezuela's problem is the lack of dialogue, suggesting that there is a sort of shared responsibility". Finally, there is the deafening silence on the killings of hundreds of demonstrators by the Ortega regime in Nicaragua.