Fridae

The United Nations Human Rights Commission has postponed the vote on a draft resolution condemning discrimination against homosexuals to 2004, apparently after five Muslim nations - Malaysia, Pakistan, Egypt, Libya and Saudi Arabia - manoeuvred procedural delays.

The vote was originally to have been taken last Wednesday, then put off until Thursday, and finally it was moved to Friday, the last day of the 59th session of the U.N. Human Rights Commission.

Last Thursday, Pakistan proposed "no action" to avoid a voting on the resolution but was defeated 24-22, with six abstentions. Behind the scenes, the Vatican itself was said to be pressuring predominantly Catholic Latin American nations against the resolution, according to several media reports.

On Friday, Libyan chairwomen Najjat Al-Hajjaji's proposal to defer the resolution to the next year's session was voted 24-17 with 12 abstentions, amid protests from Brazil, European Union and Canada.

According to Jan Doerfel of the International Research Centre for Social Minorities, the nations who were clearly in favor of the initiative were Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Guatemala, Ireland, Japan, Poland, South Korea, Russian Federation, Sweden, Thailand, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

Those who were clearly opposed to the draft resolution were Cameroon, Gabon, Kenya, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Syria, Uganda and Zimbabwe while Argentina, China, Congo, India and Senegal were leaning towards no, though not explicitly so.

The US, Chile, Cuba, Paraguay, Peru, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Togo, and Uruguay, Venezula, Vietnam abstained from voting.