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FIRST ON FOX: Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on Friday said the Biden administration should call for Russia to be expelled from the controversial U.N. Human Rights Council in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“The Biden administration rushed to get back on the Human Rights Council right after Russia joined it,” Haley said in a statement to Fox News. “They should call for Russia to be expelled immediately.”
Haley has been a vocal critic of the Human Rights Council, and it was during her time as ambassador that the Trump administration withdrew the U.S. from the council over concerns about its anti-Israel bias and the human rights abusers who sat on it – with Haley repeatedly describing the council as a “cesspool.”
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Current human rights abusers on the council include not only Russia, but China, Cuba, Eritrea and Venezuela. Ukraine, which is currently attempting to push back the Russian invasion into its territory, is also on the council.
Critics of the council have pointed to its repeated condemnations of Israel, compared with the softer treatment that other countries accused of human rights abuses are granted. In 2020, 53 countries led by Cuba came out in support of China’s oppressive national security law, which the communist regime used to abuse human rights and suppress freedom in Hong Kong.
Then-candidate Joe Biden pledged to re-enter the Human Rights Council during the 2020 campaign, and after entering office the U.S. sought to rejoin. Biden had promised to “work to ensure that body truly lives up to its values.”
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The U.S. was elected to rejoin the council in October – a move that Haley then described as “dangerous.”
“America left [the council] under President Trump because we refused to lend our credibility, as the most generous country in the world, to cover for the world’s worst tyrants and dictators,” Haley said. “[Biden’s] actions today aren’t just embarrassing; they’re dangerous.”
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The council meets next week to begin its first session of the year. Item seven on the agenda is the “human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied territories.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister on Friday accused Russia of “war crimes” and said it would bring evidence of its bombings of a school and orphanage to The Hague.
