Saudi Arabia failed on Wednesday to enter the UN Human Rights Council, a rejection by the UN General Assembly welcomed by human rights defenders who also had countries in their crosshairs. Africa who were elected.
This UN body supposed to defend human rights and public freedoms in the world is often the site of controversies and tensions between democratic and authoritarian regimes which sit side by side there.
There are 47 places on the Human Rights Council which sits in Geneva.
Eighteen places were to be filled for the 2025-2027 financial year, distributed by region: for “Asia-Pacific”, the five places were won by Cyprus, the Marshall Islands, Qatar, South Korea and the Thailand.
Saudi Arabia was the 6th candidate and failed in the vote by all member states at the UN General Assembly in New York.
“This vote counts. For too long the regime (of Crown Prince) Mohammed bin Salman has acted with complete impunity to perpetrate serious human rights violations, knowing well that its international partners are looking elsewhere,” thundered the NGOs Reprieve and European Saudi Organization in a press release. for Human Rights (ESOHR).
They counted 214 capital executions in 2024.
In Switzerland, the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) group welcomed the fact that “when truly given a choice, states vote against the least deserving candidate, refusing to empower powerful actors who violate fundamental human rights.
In the “Africa” group, there were five candidates for five seats, all of whom were elected despite weeks of protests from local and international human rights organizations, such as the influential American Human Rights. Watch: Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia and Kenya.
For “Latin America and the Caribbean”, Bolivia, Colombia and Mexico were elected and for “Eastern Western Europe and other States”, Czechia, North Macedonia, Iceland, Spain and Switzerland were elected.
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