Election of Cuba to UN Human Rights Council

As an amendment to motion S2M-04604 in the name of Tommy Sheridan (Election of Cuba to UN Human Rights Council), leave out from “welcomes” to end and insert “regrets that the resolution establishing the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) did not ensure that those participating should first agree to the universal periodic review mechanisms set up to ensure that all countries’ records are regularly evaluated; further regrets that elected members of the council include representatives of some of the world’s least democratic states who have already made it clear that their focus will be on their primary foes, the United States of America and Israel; believes that the UNHRC will be hampered by the same approaches and biases that doomed its predecessor, the UN Commission on Human Rights, when a member state such as Cuba has, since 2003, denied basic human rights to 61 political dissidents, independent journalists and human rights advocates imprisoned in April of that year, and therefore calls on Cuba to invite the UNHRC experts on human rights, torture, independence of the judiciary and arbitrary detention to visit the country so that it may be exposed to the same standards to which it wishes to expose others.”