CAIRO: Non-governmental organizations UN Watch and Freedom House have issued a joint report warning the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council not to allow Egypt, Angola, Belarus, or Qatar to have a seat on the council ahead of May 17 elections of 14 new members. The four countries were declared unqualified for their “authoritarian regimes with negative UN voting records.
Gamal Eid, executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information told The Daily Star Egypt that he supported the call. He says 27 Egyptian human rights groups had already petitioned the participating countries to refuse Egypt’s request to sit on the council. “We have no freedom of expression, he said. Among the group’s additional complaints are torture and sexual abuse, and lack of judiciary independence.
Eid believes that blocking Egypt’s request is “a good message for the Egyptian government to know it has a very bad reputation for human rights. Maybe it will be a push to have more respect for people’s rights.
The local NGOs’ petition was independent of those presented by UN Watch and Freedom House, both global campaigners for human rights.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs was unavailable for comment.
It s important for General Assembly members to vote against [the four countries] or to abstain or to write in the name of another country, Tom Melia, the deputy director of Washington-based Freedom House, told a press conference.
Fifteen countries are competing for the 14 council seats which are allocated on a regional basis.
The US has so far declined to stand for membership.
Each candidate is evaluated based on criteria such as political rights and political freedoms, freedom of the press and human rights promotion at the UN, according to Hillel Neuer, the head of Geneva-based UN Watch.
Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and Slovenia were judged well qualified while Bolivia, India, Indonesia, Madagascar, Nicaragua, the Philippines and South Africa were found to be questionable.
A majority of the UN General Assembly must write in the name of the candidate on a ballot in order for a country to be elected. The Human Rights Council was created last year to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission as part of UN reforms.
A separate report by Freedom House listed Myanmar, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as the world s most repressive societies.
Belarus, China, Ivory Coast, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Laos, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Zimbabwe were also placed near the bottom of Freedom House s list of the most repressive countries. Additional reporting from AFP
