The election of Russia and China makes a mockery of human rights

For the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) it is "a scandalous mockery of human rights” that China and Russia should again be voted into the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN). "States like these, which stamp on human rights and have no interest in establishing acceptable standards of human rights throughout the world, should not have seats in the most important UN human rights organ”, declared the GfbV on Tuesday. Likewise Saudi-Arabia and Cuba, both also standing for election, have no place in the Council.

The UN General Assembly votes today on 18 new members of the Human Rights Council, which comprises 47 states, for the years 2009 to 2011. The re-election of China and Russia appears certain since only the states of Eastern Europe and Africa could not agree on joint candidates and each proposed one state more than seats available on the Council. In the election at least 97 of the 192 UN member states must agree to an appointment.

Both China and Russia have done all they could in the three years of the existence of the Human Rights Council to prevent any forceful engagement of the United Nations for human rights. They have done all in their power to turn the Council into "a talking club with no brief, where there is a complete lack of any credibility concerning human rights”, said the GfbV.

In their own countries also Russia and China show a flagrant disregard for basic human rights. It is then bizarre that a state like China, which systematically disregards on it own territory the Anti-Torture Convention of the United Nations, which it has ratified, should stand judge over the human rights policies of other states on the Human Rights Council.

Russia’s balance sheet in terms of human rights has not righted itself either since President Dmitri Medvedev took office. On the contrary, the harassment of human rights organisations and journalists has increased. Russia is one of the ten countries in which it is particularly difficult for journalists to work. Anyone writing critical reports is risking his or her life. The well-known human rights lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, was murdered in the street on 19th January 2009 and the head of the human rights organisation "For Human Rights” was brutally attacked in April 2009. There is no forceful prosecution. Politics and the media discriminate against minority groups like the Roma, Caucasians, Central Asians and members of the indigenous groups in Russia. These are the aim of racist violence. In 2008 alone there were in Russia 87 hate murders and 378 persons were injured in attacks by neo-Nazis.