Venezuela loses seat on the UN Human Rights Council

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Venezuela lost its seat on the UN Human Rights Council this Tuesday (11) after failing to be re-elected among the members of the United Nations. The country, ruled by a dictatorship accused of violating basic individual rights, was part of the body for three years.

In their place, Chile and Costa Rica were elected. In all, 14 seats were up for grabs on Tuesday — out of a total of 47 members. The candidacies are divided by regions, and Venezuela was trying to get re-elected by Latin America and Caribbean states. Santiago got 144 votes, San José 134 and Caracas 88.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric celebrated his country’s entry into the organ and said it was “excellent news”. The council is responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the world and for addressing situations of violations. Ordered investigations are often used later in national and international courts, as in the case of a former Syrian intelligence officer convicted in Germany in January of torture.

Brazil has been a member of the council since 2016, but its term ends this year, without the possibility of re-election. The country abstained last week from the discussion on the appointment of a special rapporteur to investigate human rights violations in Russia – in the end, however, the motion was approved by the other countries.

Venezuela’s defeat further withers Moscow’s influence on the organ. Russia had already been banned from the council in April amid pressure from the US and Western powers against the Kremlin’s actions in the Ukrainian War. Another Caracas ally to be hurt by the defeat is China, which recently watched the UN point out crimes by Beijing against the Uighurs, a Muslim minority that occupies the Xinjiang region in the west of the country.

The Venezuelan regime, by the way, voted last week against a motion for the collegiate to start, next year, a round of debates on the situation of the Uighurs. This time, the resolution was rejected in its entirety, also with Brasilia’s abstention.

“Venezuela has been a constant ally of both China and Russia in this council,” Tess McEvoy of the NGO International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) told AFP news agency.

In recent days, several non-governmental organizations have campaigned against the re-election of Caracas. Louis Charbonneau, director of Human Rights Watch, said that “the brutal aggression against opponents in Venezuela means that the country does not have the credentials to belong to the highest UN human rights body”.

In September, the United Nations accused the country’s intelligence services of committing crimes against humanity on the orders of high levels of the regime. At the same time, the Venezuelan NGO Cofavic pointed to more than 200 attacks against human rights activists in 2021, including arbitrary arrests and searches.

Also on Tuesday, the UN General Assembly elected Germany, South Africa, Algeria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Morocco, Romania and Vietnam to the Council. On the other hand, South Korea and Afghanistan – led by the fundamentalist Taliban group – were not elected. The three-year term begins in January 2023.

“It’s a mixed picture. Korea’s departure is a pretty negative surprise, but liberal democracies will be relieved by Venezuela’s departure,” said Olaf Wientzek, director of the German Konrad Adenauer foundation – linked to the former’s Christian Democratic Union party. – Prime Minister Angela Merkel.

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