NO JOKE--LIBYA TO CHAIR U.N. COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

While American soldiers prepare to risk their lives to preserve our liberty and, as a consequence, help extend human rights across the globe, the United Nations once again is shown to have nothing but contempt for the freedom of man.

Ayn Rand Institute -- Press Release
2121 Alton Parkway, Suite 250 Irvine, CA 92606

Contact: Larry Benson        
E-mail: larryb@aynrand.org    
Phone: (800) 365-6552 ext. 213

Jan. 22, 2002
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

IRVINE, CA--Libya was recently elected to chair the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, which already includes Sudan, Syria and Cuba--all listed by our State Department as state sponsors of terrorism.

To have Libya on this commission, let alone chairing it, is a tragic farce, a mockery of human rights," says Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn Rand Institute. Libyas well-known record of human rights violations includes censorship, arrests without due process, widespread beatings, torture and killings, and the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988, which killed all 259 passengers and crew.

It is past time for the United States to assert itself as an uncompromising defender of individual rights and withdraw from the United Nations, an organization that sanctions and serves as a forum for the bloodiest dictatorships and terrorist regimes in the world.

While American soldiers prepare to risk their lives to preserve our liberty and, as a consequence, help extend human rights across the globe, the United Nations once again is shown to have nothing but contempt for the freedom of man."

### ### ###

Ayn Rand Institute executive director Yaron Brook is available for interviews on this topic.

For more information on Objectivisms unique point of view go to ARIs Web site at www.aynrand.org/medialink. Founded in 1985, the Ayn Rand Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.