The 53-state forum is holding its annual six-week session in Geneva as US/UK forces push ahead in their weekold invasion of Iraq. The eight members, which also included Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Algeria, Burkina Faso and Libya, had called for a special sitting of the committee on “the human rights and humanitarian situation in Iraq as a consequence of the war”.

Western countries, including Australia, Canada and Ireland on behalf of the EU, opposed the call, saying the UN Security Council was already addressing the issue. Neither the US nor British envoys took the floor during the nearly three-hour debate.

Iraqi delegate Dari K. Mahmood said after the vote: “This commission has lived today a dark day when it refused to discuss the important issue of the humanitarian situation in Iraq under military aggression.

“The whole Iraqi people is subjected to genocide,” he added. “Twenty-six million people are suffering psychological torture.” Over the last decade, the UNCHR has held special sessions during conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, East Timor and the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel. The result was 18 countries, including all Arab and Muslim states, in favor, 25 against, with seven abstentions and three delegations absent during the public vote, officials said.

Introducing the resolution, Syria’s envoy Salloum Toufiq denounced the US and British invasion as a “throwback to the Middle Ages” depriving civilians of water and food. “We were told that this would be a clean war, that it would not affect civilians. That is not true,” he said.

“We were told it was intended to come to the aid of Iraqi people. All they have been offered is bombs... There are a number of dead and wounded among civilians in Iraq. How can we not react?” the envoy added.

Speaking on behalf of the EU, Ireland argued that no special sitting was needed because the commission was already due to examine Iraq as part of its annual scrutiny of individual countries’ rights records. The Geneva-based UNCHR has regularly condemned the Iraqi government of President Saddam Hussein for rights abuses.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Sergio Vieira de Mello said: “We must also remember that the human rights crisis in Iraq did not begin a week ago.