The United Nations General Assembly today voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council due to the ongoing invasion of Ukraine and the massacre in Bucha.
In the voting on the resolution to suspend Russia from the UN Human Rights Council headquartered in Geneva, 93 countries voted in favour of the resolution, while 24 member countries voted against it. 58 countries abstained from the voting, including India.
URGENT?
— UN News (@UN_News_Centre) April 7, 2022
The UN General Assembly votes to suspend Russia's membership in the UN Human Rights Council @UN_HRC
In favor: 93
Abstained: 58
Against: 24 pic.twitter.com/6EavdZJspc
The UNGA needed two-thirds of the votes to remove Russia from the UNHRC, which was comfortably achieved, as abstentions are not counted.
India has been abstaining from all resolutions on the Russia-Ukraine conflict at the UNm and this was also no exception. Apart from India, some major member states to abstain the voting include Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa etc. Nations that sided with Russia include Belarus, China, North Korea, Iran, Kazakhstan etc.
India abstained on the UN General Assembly vote this morning. I made a statement of Explanation of Vote ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/d2jD83tLoK
— PR/Amb T S Tirumurti (@ambtstirumurti) April 7, 2022
The draft of the resolution had said that the General Assembly may “suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
The Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations, Sergiy Kyslytsya, had requested the member states to support the resolution suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council. “Now the world has come to a crucial juncture. We witness that our liner is going through treacherous fog towards deadly icebergs. It might seem that we should have named it the Titanic instead of the Human Rights Council. … We need to take an action today to save the council from sinking,” Kyslytsya had said.
On the other hand, deputy Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Gennady Kuzmin, had asked the member states to reject the resolution, saying it would set a “dangerous precedent.”
“Today is not the time nor the place for theatrics, or these kinds of extremely theatrical performances like the one presented by Ukraine. In fact the draft resolution we are considering today has no relationship to the actual human rights situation on the ground,” Kuzmin had said.
