Pakistan overwhelmingly elected to UN human rights council

The Geneva-based Council is mandated to promote and protect human rights and prevent human rights violations.


November 12, 2012
Pakistan overwhelmingly elected to UN human rights council

GENEVA: Pakistan on Monday was elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council, an inter-governmental body within the UN system.

Pakistan, which had the endorsement of the Asia Group, polled 171 votes, when 97 were required.

The Geneva-based Council is mandated to promote and protect human rights and prevent human rights violations.

The 47-member body is composed of 13 countries from Africa, 13 from Asia, six from Eastern Europe, eight from Latin America and the Caribbean, and seven from Western Europe and other states.

COMMENTS (21)

Shoaib Azad | 12 years ago | Reply

@Khalq e Khuda:

This whole report is so completely distorted as to create the impression that Pakistan has won kudos for its human rights record. Nowhere is it more obvious than in Pakistan that human rights are trampled upon with the greatest ferocity: be it journalists, women, minorities and even children who want to study. Indeed, there were widespread protests from international organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other powerful institutions that were fiercely against Pakistan's membership in the UNHRC. "You don't invite a butcher to oversee that the sheep are kept well ..." said the commentator of a respected local paper in Washington. That Pakistan got elected -- "overwhelmingly", as this report's caption says -- is due, largely, to a quirk in the electoral system of the UN where even notorious violators of human rights such as Somalia, Syria, North Korea and others can get elected with an "overwhelming majority".

But here's an extract from Tuesday's "New York Times" which had this to say:

In Monday’s election, 18 states gained seats, even though activists had denounced each potential member’s human rights record days earlier. “We need better ingredients in the soup,” Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said during an event on Friday at the United Nations in New York where questions were raised about several candidates for the panel. On Friday, UN Watch and the Human Rights Foundation had invited activists from Venezuela, Pakistan and Kazakhstan to speak about human rights violations. The three countries all gained council membership on Monday, even though the two groups judged them “not qualified” to serve, based on an examination (PDF) of their domestic rights protections and their voting record at the United Nations.

I wonder why the Express Tribune failed to mention this. Half-baked reports tend to create a wrong impression amongst readers who can be misled into believing that all is hunky dory in their country when, in fact, the opposite is true.

SK5 | 12 years ago | Reply

Every country has its own problems when it comes to human rights, Pakistan is one of them. However by delegating them this important responsibility resonantes the faith some "important people" have in Pakistan when it comes to human rights obligations. But then again I don't expect trolls to understand that.

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