In a 93-24 vote with 57 abstentions, the UN General Assembly voted today to suspend Russia from membership in the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), only the second time such an action has taken place in the Council’s history, the first being Libya’s 2011 expulsion. Using as a pretext alleged Russian atrocities in the Kiev suburb of Bucha last week, which the Russians charge was a staged event carried out by Ukrainian neo-Nazis, the U.S.-sponsored resolution expressed “grave concern at the ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, particularly at the reports of violations and abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law by the Russian Federation, including gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights.”
Earlier this week, the U.S.’s UN ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, had bellowed that “Russia should not have a position of authority in that body, nor should we allow Russia to use their role on the Council as a tool of propaganda to suggest they have a legitimate concern about human rights…. Russia’s participation on the Human Rights Council is a farce.”
