Once again, everyone but the U.S. government might finally realize that the denial of voting rights for District residents is an affront to democracy and human rights.

We’ve received word that Timothy Cooper, Executive Director of Worldrights, a human rights advocacy organization, testified on Monday before the United Nations’ Human Rights Committee in Geneva. Cooper’s grief? The lack of voting rights for District residents. In reference to the persistent injustice we constantly harp on, Cooper noted:

Without equal representation, they are subjects of the state—not participants in the state. They are constantly subjected to the arbitrary will of a Congress in which they have no vote. Congress attempts to impose death penalty legislation and terminate the city’s strict gun control laws. It even prohibits, under penalty of law, local tax dollars being spent to finance campaigns for equal voting rights. Constitutionally speaking, we are non-persons.

Cooper then asked that the committee recommend that the United States allow District residents full voting rights.

This isn’t a first for Cooper — it was around this time last year that he helped encourage the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to pass a resolution encouraging the feds to go a little easier on D.C. residents and allow them to vote. Nothing much happened after that resolution, and we’re guessing that the Bush administration won’t exactly jump when the UN tells them to. But there’s always that sliver of hope…