By Tenzin Monlam
DHARAMSHALA, October 29: Human rights watch group, UN Watch condemned the election of unqualified countries including China with severe rights abuse history in the United Nation’s top rights body.
The Geneva-based group criticized the elections while stating that more than 53 percent of the world’s highest human rights body is occupied by non-democracies.
“The reelection of China, Cuba and Saudi Arabia, regimes which systematically violate the human rights of their citizens, casts a shadow upon the reputation of the United Nations,” said UN Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer.
China with the most votes of 180 votes from Asia-Pacific States was elected yesterday in the intergovernmental body responsible for promoting and protecting all human rights and fundamental freedom despite various appeals not to reelect them.
“Since the invasion, the Chinese government has adopted policies to eradicate Tibetan culture and religion. In 2016, half of Larung Gar, home for more than 10,000 Buddhist monks, was dismantled by Chinese authorities,” said the group in a report it published in association with Human Rights Foundation and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights.
The group also expressed their disappointment over the lack of support and ‘deafening silence’ from the US Ambassador Samantha Power and her UK, French, German and other EU allies over the matter.
“By turning a blind eye as human rights violators join and subvert the council, leading democracies are complicit in the world body’s moral decline,” Neuer said, adding that elections of such candidates only undermine the credibility and effectiveness of the UN human rights system.
“When the UN helps gross abusers act as champions and global judges of human rights, it’s an insult to the political prisoners and a defeat for the global cause of human rights,” he said.
