Russia has become just the second country to be suspended from the United Nations human rights body over allegations Putin’s army committed horrific war crimes in Ukraine, including the rape and murder of hundreds of civilians.
The UN General Assembly voted 93-24 with 58 abstentions to remove Russia from the Human Rights Council.The civilian death toll in the battered port city of Mariupol has passed more than 5000, its mayor said.
Australia’s ambassador to the UN, Mitch Fifield, told the assembly that being a voting member of the council was not consistent with invading a country and slaughtering its civilians.“Apart from Russia, there is no country suggesting that there hasn’t been an invasion. Apart from Russia there is no country suggesting that there has not been slaughter.”
The Kremlin labelled the vote “illegal” and “politically motivated”. The Russian news agency RIA quoted the deputy Russian ambassador to the UN, Gennady Kuzmin, as saying the country had decided to give up its membership immediately. The US-led resolution expressed “grave concern at the ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine”. A two-thirds majority of voting members in the 193-member UN General Assembly in New York – abstentions do not count – was needed to suspend Russia from the 47-member Geneva-based Human Rights Council.
No permanent member of the Security Council had ever had its membership revoked from any UN body before Thursday’s vote.
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