UN Watch presents Minister Jason Kenney with Moral Courage Award –

UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group, has presented federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney with its Moral Courage Award for speaking up for victims of tyranny around the world.

“UN Watch honors Minister Kenney for demonstrating the courage to lead in upholding the founding principles of the United Nations, and defending the true principles of human rights,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

“When others have been silent while serial perpetrators of human rights abuses like Iran and Syria seek to hijack the UN’s human rights and anti-racism causes, Minister Kenney has been a clear and consistent voice for their millions of victims, opposing tyranny, hypocrisy and injustice.”

Mr. Kenney was Canada’s longest serving Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, holding the post from 2008 to 2013, and currently serves as Canada’s current Minister of Employment and Social Development, as well as Minister for Multiculturalism.

He was in Geneva last week to attend the ceremony.

“Human rights are not subject to interpretation. They exist by virtue of the dignity of the individual person,” Mr. Kenney said in prepared remarks. “They cannot be written off simply because a handful of particularly brutal regimes have been given a veto powers in a bureaucratic body.”

Former recipients of the Moral Courage Award include British parliamentarian John Mann, and North Korean dissident Dong-hyuk Shin.

UN Watch was founded in 1993 to monitor UN compliance with the principles of its charter. The non-governmental organization works to bring dissidents and human rights defenders to testify before the United Nations.