UN Elects Human Rights Abusers To Human Rights Council

Talk about letting the lunatics run the asylum…

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The UN General Assembly elected Cuba, China and Saudi Arabia to the new Human Rights Council, putting notorious abusers on a panel created to replace its discredited predecessor.
US Ambassador John Bolton derided the inclusion of Cuba to the council and said it proved that Washington’s concerns about the new panel, which it voted against, were justified.
“What a joy,” Bolton said sarcastically of Havana’s election. “That simply says that the deficiencies from the previous commission may well now still be carried over, as we sadly predicted when we voted against this resolution.”
The United States long criticized the previous commission, saying it was ineffective and loaded with abusers such as China, Cuba, Sudan and Zimbabwe.
The United States was among four countries that voted in March against the revamped council, on the grounds that it would be too easy for human rights violators to be elected.
Cuba, for its part, hailed its election to the Human Rights Council as a “resounding victory” for the communist regime and a “defeat” for the United States.

The UN Human Rights Council is supposed to be about promoting human rights in the world. Yet who winds up sitting on the council? Countries where basic human rights like free speech, free practice of religion, free association and political dissent are routinely oppressed.
And yet some wonder why the validity of the modern United Nations is questioned.
Personally, I don’t think America should abandon the UN, but when a country like Cuba is tasked with promoting human rights in the world even after the UN has supposedly reformed its human rights bureaucracy something has clearly gone terribly, terribly wrong.