Published 18:14 IST, April 4th 2020
China appointed as member of UN panel, will help pick experts
On April 1 China was appointed to a United Nations Human Rights Council panel and will play a key role in picking the world body’s human rights investigators.
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On April 1 China was appointed to a United Nations Human Rights Council panel. According to reports, this panel will play a key role in picking the world body’s human rights investigators. These investigators will include global monitors on freedom of speech, health, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention. This move has sparked protests by several international human rights activists.
China will help select investigators
As per reports, Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights organization reportedly equated allowing China’s ‘oppressive and inhumane regime’ to choose world investigators for the UN to ‘making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief’. In his address, Neuer added that it was absurd and immoral for the United Nations to have allowed the oppressive Chinese government a key role in selecting officials that will no doubt go forward to shape international human rights standards and report on violations worldwide.
According to reports, by joining the United Nations Human Rights Panel, China will be able to greatly influence the selection of 17 human rights mandate holders. As a part of its role as a member of the panel, China will hold screen candidates for important Human Rights posts and will also serve as the chair for 5 interview processes.
No joke: #China joins U.N. Human Rights Council panel, where it will help select the U.N.'s next world monitors on freedom of speech, enforced disappearances & arbitrary detention—and on health. That's like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief. https://t.co/DqFY90rd6I
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 3, 2020
UN Watch on their website has claimed that the appointment of China as a member of the panel comes despite the fact that the Chinese government has often been criticized for committing 'gross and systematic violations of human rights' affecting its 1.3 billion people. The person who will be representing China on the panel will be Mr Jiang Duan, who holds the rank of Minister at China’s mission to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
18:23 IST, April 4th 2020