Azerbaijan refused membership in the UN Council for Human Rights

Today, Azerbaijan's application for membership in the UN Council for Human Rights was rejected. The AP reports that the reason was the disregard of human rights in this country. Azerbaijan's application was denied together with applications of 28 other countries, among which Armenia, Iran, China and others. Among the 29 states admitted to the Council, we see Georgia, Ukraine, Germany, Great Britain, Canada and others. Eleven more countries may be co-opted into the 47 members of the Council for Human Rights. The final membership will be decided on May 9 at the session of the UN General Assembly. The Council for Human Rights is a new structure intended to replace the Commission for Human Rights.

We remind you that earlier the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch addressed the UN with an official letter demanding not to include into the members of the newly-created Council for Human Rights seven out of 65 states participating in the Security Council of the United Nations. According to Kenneth Roth, head of the Human Rights Watch, human rights activists are demanding not to consider during the elections the membership in the new Council of representatives of Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia. The grounds for this requirement are massive violations of human rights in these countries. Apart from the above seven states, the Human Rights Watch severely criticised also Venezuela, India and SAR.

Human rights activist Novella Jafaroglu said, in her comments on today's UN decision, to the correspondent of the "Caucasian Knot" that it was just what to have been expected. "When we repeatedly warned the authorities of the country on the need to respect the fundamental human rights, they kept ignoring us. Today in the world, human rights are a priority, and creation of a new authoritative international structure in this area will help to efficiently react to human rights violations in any country," she mentioned.