(CNSNews.com) – Fewer than one-third of the seats in the U.N. Human Rights Council next year will be occupied by “free” democracies – for the first time in the 16-year history of the body.
The Geneva-based council has long been plagued by the presence in its ranks of some of the world’s most egregious rights-abusing regimes, but never before have countries ranked as “free” by the democracy watchdog Freedom House not held at least one-third of the 47 seats.
In 2022, however, the caucus of “free” members will shrink to just 15 members, or 31.9 percent of the total.
The rest of the membership next year will comprise 14 “not free” countries – including Russia, China, Cuba, Sudan, Qatar, and the Maduro regime in Venezuela – and 18 countries graded as “partly free” in Freedom House’s annual assessment, based on political rights and civil liberties.
Sixteen of next year’s members will belong to the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the bloc of Muslim-majority states that has
played an outsized role in the council’s skewed focus on Israel. (Israel
is the only country, out of 193 U.N. member-states, to be targeted by a
permanent agenda item at the HRC.).........To Read More....
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