Libya Elected to United Nations Human Rights Council--Move Opposed by Western-backed NGOs

Libyan leader Moammer Kadhafi (L) meets Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in Sirte, about 600 km (370 miles) east of Tripoli, on the sidelines of the 13th African Union summit of heads of state and government.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire File Photos

Libya elected to UN Human Rights Council

From: NewsCore May 14, 2010 5:05AM

LIBYA was elected overnight to the United Nations Human Rights Council despite numerous complaints that the country was unfit to serve on the international rights body.

A group of 37 human rights organisations called on the UN's 192 members not to allow Libya a seat on the Geneva-based council, the UN's main body dealing with human rights.

They described the regime of Libyan leader Muammer Gaddafi as "one of the world's most brutal and longest-running tyrannies".

"Colonel Gaddafi belongs in jail, not on the world's highest human rights body," they said.

But the appeal fell on deaf ears, and a General Assembly secret ballot produced 155 votes in favor of adding Libya to the council, significantly more than the 97 votes needed.

Libya and 13 other nations ran unopposed for 14 of the council's seats in a ballot process in which regional groups for the first time each picked a number of candidate equal to the number of seats available to them.

NGOs criticized the process as undemocratic.

"Elections without competition don't make sense," the group of rights defenders said.

The council has 47 member nations, each elected for three years, and a third of the body's seats are up for renewal each year. The seats are apportioned by region, with each bloc able to put forward candidates for the places available to it.

The four seats available to Africa this vote went to Libya, Angola, Mauritania and Uganda.

In the Asian group, Iran's withdrawal from contention - which was welcomed by human rights groups - left Malaysia, the Maldives, Qatar and Thailand as contenders for the four available spots.

Ecuador and Guatemala took two seats available to Latin America, while Spain and Switzerland took Western Europe's spots and Moldova and Poland earned the places set aside for Eastern Europe.

The results were announced by the current president of the General Assembly, Libyan national Ali Triki.