“Vladimir Putin’s Russia doesn’t deserve a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council,” by Vladimir Kara-Murza, The Washington Post, May 13 (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/13/vladimir-putins-russia-doesnt-deserve-seat-un-human-rights-council/?fbclid=IwAR1UXCrV61Ohui8j981v4yd7bqo82Wi9i0H6YWkRQFQb-e8pSS1Rx8bbzww):
Last month, U.N. Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group, released a report on the upcoming election to the United Nations Human Rights Council. According to the group, governments seeking a place on the top human rights watchdog at the General Assembly session in October will include some of the world’s worst human rights abusers – among them Cuba, Saudi Arabia and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
…The government in Moscow has long been eager to return to the forum, from which it was dropped nearly four years ago. …
The Kremlin has also been trying to play up its own record. The position paper drafted by [Sergei] Lavrov’s [Foreign Affairs] ministry reads like a novel from George Orwell. Asserting “promotion and protection of human rights” as one of its “overarching priorities,” the Russian government commits to ensuring “strict compliance by states with their international human rights obligations”; “involv[ing] civil society institutions in addressing international issues”; and “enhanc[ing] cooperation with … human rights organizations.”…
…The reason for establishing the U.N. Human Rights Council to replace the defunct (and widely discredited) Human Rights Commission was to avoid the offense of the top human rights watchdog being led by human rights abusers.
… even a quick glance at the Putin government’s record shows that it falls well short of the acceptable minimum. It holds hundreds of political prisoners. It blacklists civic groups as “undesirable organizations.” It holds elections “without real competition” and conducts crackdowns on peaceful protesters. And that’s not even mentioning the indiscriminate bombing of civilians during its military operations in Syria, or its wholesale annexation of Crimea from neighboring Ukraine. Indeed, if there ever were an embodiment of the proverbial fox guarding the henhouse, it would be Putin’s regime regaining a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council.…