Israeli Ambassador: Venezuela’s UNHRC Seat Shows HRC Has ‘Zero Concern for Human Rights’

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon criticized the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) for providing a seat to Venezuela on Oct. 17, arguing that it shows that the UNHRC doesn’t care about human rights.

Danon tweeted that Venezuela is “led by a dictator who starves his people” and Libya, which was also elected to the UNHRC, “runs torture camps for African migrants.”

“What is the #HRC’s focus? 1. Obsessive hatred of Israel 2. Zero concern for actual human rights violations,” Danon tweeted.

.@UNHumanRights
just elected these bastions of moral leadership:
🇻🇪 Venezuela, led by a dictator who starves his people.
🇱🇾 Libya, runs torture camps for African migrants.

What is the #HRC's focus?
1. Obsessive hatred of Israel
2. Zero concern for actual human rights violations

— Danny Danon 🇮🇱 דני דנון (@dannydanon) October 17, 2019

Danon also said in a statement, “The Human Rights Council continues to abandon human rights and is now in the business of protecting dictators and war crimes.”

United States Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Craft said in a statement, “That one of the world’s worst human-rights abusers would be granted a seat on a body that is supposed to defend human rights is utterly appalling,” adding that Venezuela’s new seat on the UNHRC “reinforces why the United States withdrew” from the council in 2018.

U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer said in a statement, “Electing the oppressive Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro to a human rights council is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief. It’s absurd, immoral and offensive.”

U.N. Watch has started a campaign to pressure the U.N. General Assembly to expel Venezuela from the UNHRC under Article 8, which states that any country “that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights” can be removed from the council. A U.N. Watch petition on the matter states, “The Maduro regime routinely targets opposition leaders, including by imprisoning them and preventing their participation in elections. According to the NGO Foro Penal, as of April 2019 there were more than 900 political prisoners across Venezuela. Due process violations are commonplace, including arbitrary detention for extended periods without criminal charges. The judiciary lacks independence, generally rules in favour of the government, and is plagued by corruption.”

The petition added that 4.4 million Venezuelans have fled the country, in large part due to Venezuela’s “catastrophic economic crisis” that has resulted in “mass hunger, epidemics and shortages of basic food and medicine.”

The Anti-Defamation League has noted that Venezuela’s “Chavez/Maduro governments have been overtly anti-Israel, pro-Iran and Syria, and used the Palestinian cause as a propaganda tool to advance their foreign policy agenda.” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has accused claims of his presidency being illegitimate were due to a “Zionist” conspiracy.