Syria's Bid For Seat On UN Rights Council In Jeopardy

UN Watch, a Geneva based rights group that monitors UN activities hailed the most recent media report that Syria’s bid for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council could be undone by Kuwait’s newly announced candidacy.

“The defeat of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad’s cynical candidacy is a welcome message to his brutalized population that the world is repulsed by the regimes ongoing massacres” UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer said in a statement. 

Two weeks ago, UN Under Secretary General for Political Affairs Lynn Pascoe briefed the Security Council on Syria’s military crackdown against protesters. Rights groups estimate that over 600 people have been killed since protests broke out in mid-March. Security Council members have so far be unable to agree on a statement condemning the Syrian government’s actions.

Last year, pressure from the international community forced Iran to drop its bid for a seat on UN rights body, and this March, the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly moved unanimously to suspend Libya from its seat on the council after the Gaddafi regime escalated attacks on protesters.