The Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) has warned of the erosion of human rights throughout the world. It is a sad affair that 64 percent of the states applying for a seat on the UN Human Rights Council on Thursday systematically disregard human rights, said the STP on Tuesday in Göttingen. If persecuting states have the say even in the most important UN human rights organ, then the credibility of the human rights work of the United Nations is in a bad state.

The UN General Assembly in New York elects this Thursday (13th May 2010) the replacement of 14 seats on the Council, which is made up by 47 states. This number was agreed by the regional groups within the United Nations ion the basis of a coding scheme. Among them on the African continent is Libya, whose regime has black Africans expelled and withholds basic rights from the indigenous Berbers, who make up ten percent of the population. Mauretania is also to be allocated a seat in spite of the fact that is intimidates and persecutes critics of slavery, which persists to the present day. Angola rules with an iron hand in the former Portuguese colony of Cabinda and Uganda's police authorities have no qualms about massacres of nomad cattle-owners accused of stealing cattle and illegal possession of firearms.

The states applying from Asia cannot be seen as guarantors of human rights either. Thailand counts on brute force in the Moslem south of the country and grants impunity to the security forces violating human rights in the civil war. Malaysia has for decades been systematically destroying the habitat of indigenous peoples. Native peoples working for their rights are arrested arbitrarily. The Emirate Qatar on the Persian Gulf rejects not only the founding of political parties, but is blocking UN sanctions against Sudan, thwarting the prosecution of war crimes in Sri Lanka and has spoken out against UN human rights observers for Congo.

The central state of Guatemala disregards the most severe violations of human rights against native people and is not prepared to clear up properly the mass murders of Maya Indians. In the south American country of Ecuador the rights of indigenous peoples are being infringed. It is true that its government celebrates at the international level the preservation of the rain-forest, but native people constantly report on projects for the exploitation of natural resources in their settlement areas which endanger their survival.