Saudi Arabia fails to win seat on UN Human Rights Council

This is the second time in a row for the Persian Gulf kingdom to lose the elections. In 2020, it also finished bottom in the secret ballot, held at the UN headquarters in New York.

In Wednesday’s election, it received 117 votes, the least among six Asia-Pacific countries competing for five seats on a regional slate.

Rights groups have welcomed the news, saying that it proves that Riyadh’s attempts to prove that it was taking steps to improve its human rights record have failed.

“As the execution crisis in the kingdom intensifies, with killings on a daily basis, including of drug offenders and people whose only crime was to stand up for human rights, this vote shows that the world is watching and taking note,” said Maya Foa, director of the rights group Reprieve which earlier on Wednesday revealed that Saudi Arabia has executed 213 people so far this year.

“The Saudi regime has spent vast sums of money to promote a false vision of the kingdom, selling stories of progress on human rights while cracking down ever more harshly on dissent. Its failure to secure a seat on the Council shows that, for once, it is being judged on its actions, not its public relations campaign,” Foa told Middle East Eye.

The HRC is the main intergovernmental body within the UN with the mandate to strengthen the protection and promotion of human rights around the world.

Human rights activists have denounced Riyadh’s candidacy as contradicting the council’s raison d’etre.

The criteria for electing its member countries include a requirement for members to “uphold the highest standards in the promotion and protection of human rights” and to “fully cooperate with the Council”.

The HRC voted on Wednesday to elect 18 new members from 19 candidates running on five separate regional slates. The Asia-Pacific slate had six candidates competing for five seats. Saudi Arabia came in sixth with 117 votes, behind the Marshall Islands (124), the Republic of Korea (161), Cyprus (167), Qatar (167) and Thailand (177).

The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR), an international rights group, announced it had lobbied states before the vote to ensure new members have a record of upholding the council’s mandate to promote and protect human rights.

“We are relieved that enough States took their record on human rights into account when voting,” stated Madeleine Sinclair, director of ISHR’s New York office.

“Saudi Arabia’s record is a laundry list of the kinds of abuses the Council should seek to address: from atrocity crimes, to the repression of civil society and criminalisation of women human rights defenders, both in and outside its borders,” she added.