Putin’s bid for human rights cover
Nothing more acutely illustrates the return of Vladimir Putin’s Russia to the doublespeak of the Soviet era than Moscow’s Orwellian arguments for re-election to the United Nations Human Rights Council, in a filing submitted by the regime ahead of a General Assembly vote Friday.
Does membership matter? For Russia and its fellow authoritarian regimes — which together fill more than 60% of the council seats — it matters a great deal.
Russia exploited its existing council seat over the past three years to evade condemnation for occupying Crimea, block scrutiny of its bloody war in Ukraine and emerge unscathed even after pulverizing the people of Aleppo, hand in hand with Bashir Assad.
Russia also used its seat to shield human rights-abusing allies like Venezuela, and to undermine positive initiatives such as a proposed mandate to protect dissidents.
Beyond Geneva, non-democracies like Russia, Saudia Arabia, China and Cuba crave the false legitimacy and priceless propaganda bestowed by their absurd membership on the world’s highest human rights body.
Unelected regimes are emboldened by the international seal of approval. Their dissidents are demoralized.
Criteria for election, according to the council’s founding document, are the candidate country’s “contribution to the promotion and protection of human rights” and its “voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto.”
Russia has little to show for the former, so they invested in the latter. In a five-page campaign platform submitted to the UN by envoy Vitaly Churkin, the Putin regime presents numerous claims that General Assembly members would do well to fact-check before casting votes next Friday.
Russia’s submission proclaims the government’s “attachments to fundamental values” — including “the eradication of corruption.”
The cynicism is breathtaking. Putin’s regime has a long record of persecuting whistleblowers who sought to expose official corruption, from Mikhail Khodorkovsky to the late Serge Magnitsky to current opposition activist Alexsey Navalny.
Further, Russia’s UN submission declares that Moscow is “firmly committed” to “its international obligations in the field of human rights.” This, we are told, is manifest in Russian policies “further strengthening democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The truth is the opposite: Since Putin’s return to the presidency in 2012, his government has violently cracked down on freedom of association and expression. The murder of opposition leader Boris Nemtsov near the Kremlin in 2015 followed a string of journalist deaths and beatings attributed to the regime.
According to Freedom House, vague laws on extremism grant the authorities wide discretion to crack down on any speech, organization or activity that lacks official support. Dissidents have been targets of state media propaganda, as those with international ties were designated by law as “foreign agents.” Many have been forced to emigrate.
Finally, the height of the position paper’s cynicism is Russia’s professed commitment to promote “the strengthening of international legality” based on “compliance by States with their national constitutions” and their “obligations under international agreements and treaties.” Putin’s occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea, blatant violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and politically motivated arrests, detentions and trials of Ukrainian citizens in Russia all make a mockery of international legality.
Russia’s latest attacks on civilians in Syria, including its apparent bombing of a UN humanitarian convoy, reveal Russia’s true attitude toward international norms, obligations and treaties that it has solemnly signed.
When Russia last ran for a council seat in 2013, it received the votes of 176 countries — all but 17 of the 193 GA members. This means at least half of the European Union’s 28 members likely voted for Vladimir Putin as a world judge and champion of human rights. How obscene.
Today’s ballot is a timely opportunity for democracies to atone for past actions by voting en masse to reject a government that treats the UN’s founding principles with contempt.