In anticipation of the election to the United Nations Human Rights Council for the term 2023-2025, a coalition of human rights NGOs issued a report in opposition to the election of Afghanistan, Algeria, Sudan, Venezuela, and Vietnam. This comes against the backdrop of their human rights records, in addition to their voting records on UN resolutions on human rights.
The NGO coalition, comprising UN Watch, Human Rights Foundation, and the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights, described these countries as being “unqualified” to be on the UN Human Rights Council. Due to little competition, these countries may very well secure a seat on the UN Human Rights Council, which led the NGO coalition to remind UN member states that “they have the legal right, and moral obligation, to refrain from voting for unqualified candidates.”
[bs-quote quote=”“It will be an insult to their political prisoners and many other victims — and a defeat for the global cause of human rights — if the UN helps gross abusers act as champions and global judges of human rights. When the UN’s highest human rights body becomes a case of the foxes guarding the henhouse, the world’s victims suffer.”” style=”default” align=”left” color=”” author_name=”Hillel Neuer” author_job=”Geneva-based UN Watch” author_avatar=”” author_link=””][/bs-quote]
Questioning Algeria’s credibility as a candidate for the UN Human Rights Council, the NGO noted that Algiers commits “serious violations of human rights”, including “torture, arbitrary arrests, lack of independence of the judiciary, illegal interference in private life, restrictions on freedom of expression, corruption, trafficking in persons, criminalization of homosexual behavior and child labor among others.” Algeria was also categorized as a politically “not free” country following the elections of June 2021 that have received criticism for their “fraudulent nature.” Not to mention “the widespread corruption and lack of transparency, which the Algerian government suffers from”, with the report adding that Algiers has maintained its repression of the pro-democracy movement “Hirak” since 2020 while stifling the freedoms of members of the opposition group “Rachad” and the “Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia” (MAK). Moreover, during its time at the Human Rights Council from 2014 to 2016, Algeria also opposed resolutions that advocated for victims of human rights in Iran, Syria, Belarus, and Burundi.