United Nations– United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk Facing a vote for a second four-year term on Friday, he has faced pushback from critics and some countries for his comments. Israeli attack on Gaza and his methods China’s repression of Uyghur minority.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres quietly nominated the Austrian lawyer for a second term. The 193-member General Assembly is scheduled to vote on his reappointment on Friday afternoon after private negotiations but no public discussion.
The U.S. State Department called the hasty vote “yet another example of the inherent corruption and incompetence of the United Nations.”
“Volker Turk turned a blind eye to real atrocities and instead pursued a radical ideological agenda,” the department said. “We will not allow the UN Secretary-General to reward his cronies with cushy extensions for which he has done nothing.”
The job of the U.N. human rights chief is inherently tricky: It requires speaking out against human rights abuses by the world body’s member governments. For example, Turck sharply criticized Russia invades Ukraine in 2022.
Turk’s term is set to expire on October 11, and the Russian mission to the United Nations said it has proposed extending his term until December 31, the end of Guterres’ second five-year term as secretary-general.
Russia says Guterres tried to give Türkiye four more years United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “Unprecedented.” None of his predecessors has served two terms since the position was created in 1993.
If it is extended to the end of this year, the selection of a new human rights chief will be the responsibility of the next secretary-general. The six candidates are The race for the new United Nations Secretary-General.
Guterres sent a letter to U.N. regional organizations earlier this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Turk. There was no objection from the African Group, but there was some opposition from Latin American countries, including Nicaragua, Argentina and Paraguay.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Guterres’ actions to secure the re-election of UN Secretary-General Turk as the “latest moral failure” and said on social media that the choice should be left to his successor.
“There have been years of bias against Israel, and the answer is accountability — not rewriting the rules,” the ministry said.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Guterres was following the 1993 resolution that established the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights and allowed for re-election.
“The secretary-general does things in a very transparent manner, following the rules and his authority,” Dujarric told reporters on Friday. “This has been preceded by consultations with member states and regional organizations.”
Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the rights office, said Turck was “ready to accept a new term.” She noted that the job required “the promotion and protection of human rights around the world, and as part of that, he considered it his duty to engage with all countries.”
Turck, the human rights chief and a long-time U.N. official who worked for Guterres at U.N. headquarters in New York, expressed concern about various issues in China, including the fate of detainees — such as artist Gao Zhen, lawyer Yu Wensheng and Media tycoon Jimmy Lai – and the counter-terrorism and assimilation practices that influence Ethnic minorities including Uighurs Distributed in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Tibet and other regions.
Critics insist he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, which alleged discriminatory behavior in China Detention of Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may constitute a crime against humanity.
Turk also did not join the ranks of independent UN human rights experts. Accusing Israel of genocide during which it targeted the Palestinians war against hamas In Gaza. Israel strongly denies these claims.
Ken Ross, the former director of Human Rights Watch, called Turk “a disaster” and said “the biggest stain on Turk’s reputation is his complete abandonment of the Uyghurs.” He called them victims of the worst state persecution that Turk ignored.
The Chinese government denies that Uyghurs have been or are being persecuted. China insists its policies in Xinjiang have eradicated terrorism and religious extremism after sporadic violence in the region over the past few decades.
His office said Turk used private contacts with Beijing and public advocacy to support human rights in China. Ross called it “an admission that he did nothing, that he put aside the plight of the Uyghurs and only pretended to care.”
Ross said Türk faced a major problem because the job of the U.N. human rights commissioner “should be to provoke public pressure, and you do that in a forceful, provocative and timely manner.”
Ross said he “succeeded in making a powerful position largely innocuous” by talking about issues in a way that “made people’s eyes glaze over.”
Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva, Farnoush Amiri in New York and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
This article was generated from automated news agency feeds without modifications to the text.
