Saudi Arabia seeking to head UN rights body!
Saudi Arabia is reportedly planning to make a bid to head the United Nations' Human Rights Council, in a move that has been described as the "final nail in the coffin for the credibility" of the HRC.
Reports of the bid come just days after Saudi Arabia posted a job advertisement for eight new executioners. This year it has already put 85 people to death in what has been branded by Amnesty International a "macabre spike" from the 87 people it killed in total last year.
The country will move to assume lead control over the HRC after 2016 when the presidency is awarded to a new nation.
UN Watch, a non-profit human rights group that monitors the international body, disclosed Saudi Arabia's intentions in a recent report and urged the United States to fight against it.
The move in 2013 to elect Saudi Arabia to the UN's 47-seat Human Rights Council drew condemnation from campaign groups over alleged systematic violations of the rights of its citizens.
Germany currently heads the HRC, but its term will conclude in 2016. Elections will be held in early December 2015 for the 2016 term, according to a UN official.
Rates of human trafficking are high in Saudi Arabia, and the kingdom is currently designated by the United States as a "country of particular concern" regarding religious persecution.
Comments