Because who doesn’t think “human rights” when they think about forced abortions and public beheadings?
Via CNS News:
By the end of Tuesday, a handful of countries notorious for blocking human rights promotion at home and abroad will have rejoined the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Due to an absence of competition, Tuesday’s vote at the General Assembly in New York will see China, Russia and Saudi Arabia all return to the council in January, just one year after term limits obliged them to stand down. They will be joined by Vietnam, which will take a seat for the first time since the Geneva-based HRC was established in 2006.
The State Department’s latest report on human rights in China describes it as “an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party constitutionally is the paramount authority.” The report also cited China for its coercive one-child-per couple policy which sometimes resulted in “forced abortion” or “forced sterilization.”
Saudi Arabia, according to the State Department human rights report, only issues drivers licenses to men, effectively prohibiting women from driving. The country also requires women to have permission of their “male guardian” to move around the country.
The State Department also says that in Saudi Arabia “conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy, which can be punishable by death.” Non-Muslim clergy are not allowed to enter the country to perform services, according to the State Department’s report on religious freedom, “which is particularly problematic for Roman Catholics and Orthodox Christians, whose religious traditions require that they receive sacraments from a priest on a regular basis.”