‘Black day’: election of China and Pakistan to UN human rights body sparks anger

NEW DELHI / WASHINGTON: The re-election of countries like China and Pakistan to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) amid opposition from human rights groups generated condemnation from various sectors on Wednesday.
China won a HRC seat by a small margin on Tuesday, while Pakistan garnered the highest number of votes among the five candidates from the Asia-Pacific region.
Reprimanding the human rights body for the election of nations like China, Russia and Cuba, the United States said its position of withdrawing from the council two years ago has been vindicated.
“The election of China, Russia, and Cuba to the UN Human Rights Council validates the United States’ decision to withdraw from the council in 2018 and use other venues to protect and promote universal human rights. At this year’s UNGA, we did just that, “US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted.

Pompeo said that the United States’ commitment to human rights is much more than words.
“We have identified and punished human rights abusers in Xinjiang, Myanmar, Iran and elsewhere, and we call on all nations to seize this moment to renew their commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR),” he said.

Several human rights groups and activists also strongly opposed the election of China and Pakistan due to their dismal human rights records.
Hillel Neuer, a Geneva-based international human rights lawyer and executive director of United Nations Watch, condemned the election of the four countries, calling it a “black day” for human rights.
“Today is a black day for human rights. The most recent UN human rights judges include: Pakistan: persecutes Christians, Hindus, Ahmadi. China: led a million Uighurs to camps. Russia: poisons dissidents Cuba: police state. The prisoners are running the asylum. ”

India’s leading foreign policy expert, Brahma Chellany, tweeted: “China, despite jailing more than a million Muslims, unleashing harsh repression in Tibet and killing detainees to remove their organs for transplantation, wins a seat on the UN Human Rights Council. He gets 30 fewer votes than his country. Representative, Pakistan. The Council is becoming irrelevant. ”

Questioning the rights body, social media influencers Surendra Poonia said: “How come your organization cannot see atrocities against minorities in Pakistan and torture camps in China where Uighur Muslims are tortured? It is like a brutal murderer who receives an award for non-violence. ”

Amjad Ayub Mirza, an activist from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), said that the election of the “world’s worst human rights violators” to the UN body will damage its credibility.
“The world’s worst human rights violators will be elected to the board of directors of the UN Human Rights Council. Countries include Pakistan, China, Cuba, Russia and Saudi Arabia. This will seriously damage the credibility of the organization,” Amjad tweeted Ayub Mirza on Wednesday. .
Last week, a coalition of human rights groups from Europe, the United States and Canada had called on UN member states to oppose elections in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Pakistan and Uzbekistan, saying their Human rights records make them “unconditional.” ”
According to the list of priority countries for human rights published in ‘The 2019 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Report’ entitled ‘Human Rights and Democracy’ by the British government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO), there were serious concerns and violations of human rights in Pakistan in 2019, including restrictions on civic space and freedom of expression, intolerance and direct and open discrimination towards minority communities.
In addition to Pakistan, concerns have also been raised in various reports about prevalent human rights violations in China.
“China continued to impose restrictions on the expression of religious beliefs, ethnic minorities, the media and greater freedom of expression, as well as detaining and harassing human rights defenders and restricting the space for civil society to act. arbitrariness on the part of the authorities, the detention continued, as did the lack of judicial transparency and due process, particularly in cases considered ‘politically sensitive’. In Xinjiang, credible estimates indicate that more than 1 million Uighurs and other ethnic minorities they have been extrajudicially detained in internment camps throughout the region. ” the report said.
(With inputs from agencies)