A spokesperson for the United Nations has criticized the Trump administration’s response to violent riots taking place in Portland and other American cities.
Speaking to reporters on July 24, UN spokesperson Elizabeth Throssell said, “Peaceful demonstrations that have been taking place in cities in the US, such as Portland, really must be able to continue without those participating in them — and also, the people reporting on them, the journalists — risking arbitrary arrest or detention, being subject to unnecessary, disproportionate or discriminatory use of force, or suffering other violations of their rights.”
Throssell is the media and communications officer of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Prior, according to information she posted to her profile on LinkedIn, she spent 23 years working for the BBC.
Throssell’s work history tells you all you really need to know about her bias. The BBC, her former longtime employer, has a reliably left-wing, statist and internationalist bias. How biased is the BBC? Peter Sissons was a 20-year veteran anchorman for the organization.
“In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the pervading culture,” Sissons said of the BBC in 2011. “The better word is a ‘mindset.’ At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.”
Continuing, Sissons noted the organation’s soft spot for the United Nations.
“Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.”
It is not especially surprising, therefore, to see a BBC veteran like Throssell migrating over to the United Nations. Nor, if she is representative of the mindset described by Sissons, is it surprising to find her parroting progressive propaganda on the nature of the riots in American cities and misrepresenting them as “peaceful.”
They are, of course, anything but peaceful.
Consider, as Throssell does, the chaos in Portland. Reporters from the Oregonian newspaper had a chance to spend time with the federal law enforcement officers she criticizes and experience a night under siege in the city’s federal court house.
“The scene inside was businesslike, grim, resigned,” the paper’s reporters said of conditions inside the courthouse while rioters gathered outside. “As the night wore on, every so often, loud booms rang out from commercial fireworks launched by protesters, the concussion thundering through the high-ceiling lobby,” the Oregonian continued. “The cavernous interior remained dark, except for bright green laser beams bouncing off the walls as protesters aimed them from the outside. When the federal officers opened the front doors, everything from small rubber bouncy balls to apples and ball bearings were chucked in.”
And Portland is only the tip of the iceberg in this summer of leftwing political violence. Leftist paramilitaries have marched through parks and cities, brandishing arms and threatening violence. People have been attacked in their cars, families have been shot at by violent terrorists, and innocent people have lost their lives. And those who advocate for peace and oppose the violence, generally conservatives, increasingly need to fear for their safety. In Milwaukee, an open supporter of President Trump was assassinated. In the wake of that heinous crime, a caller identified as “John, a Democrat from Wisconsin,” contacted C-Span to threaten Trump supporters and federal law enforcement personnel with “bloodshed.”
Said the C-Span caller: “This morning a Trump supporter was killed. Was shot and killed in a drive-by in Milwaukee. I don’t know if you got that news. But the people in Milwaukee are waiting for those troops to come in because they got weapons and there’s gonna be a lot of bloodshed when they come. So that’s all I got to say.”
All of this is “peaceful” according to the UN’s Throssell?
Rather than criticize their ideological partners busy rioting, destroying cities and threatening lives and properties, the UN plans to issue a statement on the federal response to the riots.
“In light of demonstrations across the world, the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, has been analyzing the right to peaceful assembly,” said UN News, an official propaganda office for the world body.
“Ms. Throssell said the Committee will issue a general comment, or guidance, on 29 July, covering issues that include both physical and online protests, public order, and the work of the media.”
Photo showing fire set by demonstrators in Portland: AP Images
Dennis Behreandt is a research professional and writer, frequently covering subjects in history, theology, and science and technology. He has worked as an editor and publisher, and is a former managing editor of The New American.
