UN General Assembly. Photo: Michael M. Santiago / Gettyimages.ru
The UN General Assembly decided on Thursday to exclude Russia from the Human Rights Council. The move follows allegations against the Russian military of killing civilians in the Ukrainian city of Bucha, which Moscow has repeatedly denied.
The resolution was adopted by 93 countries in favor, 24 against and 58 abstentions.
That’s how the voting went. Photo: Russia Today
Among Latin American countries, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua voted against the decision, while Brazil, El Salvador and Mexico abstained. Venezuela did not vote. The rest of the countries in the region supported the decision.
China is among the countries that did not support the suspension, along with Iran, Algeria, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan.
General results. Photo: Russia Today
This Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki and U.S. permanent representative to the international organization Linda Thomas-Greenfield reported that Washington is trying to expel Moscow from the council over its military operation in Ukraine. “Russia should not have a position of authority on this body, nor should we allow Russia to use its seat on the council as a propaganda tool to suggest that it has legitimate human rights concerns,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
In turn, Russia’s representative to the United Nations, Vasili Nebenzia, called a press conference on Monday to set out Moscow’s position on the Bucha killings, calling it “inconceivable” the fact that Washington was trying to persuade others to smuggle the Eurasian country to be suspended from the UN Human Rights Council and also from various multilateral forums. “We cannot believe what the West and its allies are trying to do,” said the diplomat. “This fact is unprecedented, it will neither facilitate nor support what is happening between Russia and Ukraine,” repeated the diplomat.
For his part, Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Director-General António Guterres, previously stated that Moscow’s exclusion from the forum would set “a dangerous precedent”.
The Human Rights Council is an intergovernmental body within the United Nations system, made up of 47 States, with responsibility for their promotion and protection worldwide.
The resolution, passed in March 2006 and establishing the Human Rights Council, states that the General Assembly has the right to suspend a country’s membership if it “commits serious and systematic violations of human rights”.
The only time the UN General Assembly suspended a state’s membership of the Council was in 2011, when Libya’s participation was discussed in response to Muammar Gaddafi’s government’s violence against protesters in that African country. So Moscow supported the suspension.
The Human Rights Council has been criticized on several occasions. In 2018, for example, then-US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikky Haley called the organization “hypocritical” for its “unfair criticism” of Israel and announced that Washington would end its membership, although it later changed its decision on the membership changed.
Between 2017 and 2019, Russia was not a member of the Council. This was because it lost the elections that took place in October 2016. At that time, it received 112 votes, being surpassed by Hungary and Croatia with 144 and 114 votes respectively.
(Taken from Russia Today)