I had been looking forward to this year's International Human Rights Rank Indicator (IHRRI) which was due to be issued tomorrow but – alas – it has suddenly, and without explanation, been postponed for several months.

The IHRRI is (or perhaps was) an international league table of human rights, covering 216 countries. Last year, unbelievably, it placed the United Arab Emirates in 12th position worldwide – between New Zealand and Iceland. No other Arab country came anywhere close to the UAE in terms of human rights performance; Morocco was nearest, in 67th position.

When this claim about the Emirates was noted (and ridiculed) on social media, IHRRI deleted the entire league table from its website – again, suddenly and without explanation – though a cached version can be found here.

The deleted version was replaced with the words "coming soon" and a counter showing the days, hours, minutes and seconds until its next appearance. Zero hour was going to be tomorrow but the counter has now been reset, adding a further wait of 153 days.

The organiser of this league table is the Global Network for Rights and Development (GNRD) which describes it as the "most trustful and complete international human rights rank indicator".GNRD, as I have pointed out before, has links with the UAE and its website takes an unusually favourable view of the UAE's human rights record.
 
   
Posted by Brian Whitaker
Thursday, 30 April 2015