An investigative report in HANADA exposes obstruction and growing Chinese influence within the UN Human Rights Council. The irony of officials from countries with severe domestic human rights abuses overseeing the rights of other nations reveals the structural hypocrisy of the United Nations itself.

Officials from countries with severe domestic human rights abuses now sit at the United Nations judging the human rights of others.
This structural contradiction lies at the very heart of the UN’s hypocrisy.
What appears as “procedural trouble” is, in reality, systematic obstruction driven by growing political influence.

2017-07-04

The current issue of the monthly magazine HANADA features a special report titled “The True Nature of the United Nations.”
The following is taken from one of its in-depth investigations.
Emphasis other than the title is mine.

For four days starting on June 5, our conservative delegation attended the 35th session of the UN Human Rights Council held in Geneva, Switzerland.
This was my fourth time participating as part of a UN delegation.
This time, I was responsible for delivering a speech on the comfort women issue as a representative of an NGO.
The delegation consisted of three teams, led by diplomatic analyst Shunichi Fujiki, participating at different times.
On the comfort women issue, Ms. Mio Sugita and I participated, along with Professor Eiji Yamashita, as a counter to UN Special Rapporteur David Kaye.
On the Okinawa issue, Ms. Mako Ganaha and her group countered activist Hiroji Yamashiro, bringing the total number of participants to nine.
However, at the venue, inexplicable incidents that could only be described as “obstruction” repeatedly occurred.
Even when speeches had been properly registered, speakers were told on the day that they were not registered, or were forced to wait nearly two weeks without being allowed to speak.
With Ban Ki-moon of South Korea having served as UN Secretary-General until last year, and with a rapid increase in Chinese staff at the Geneva offices, Chinese influence within the UN is now considered substantial.
It is difficult to dismiss the possibility that deliberate interference was involved.
Recently, the Secretary-General of the World Uyghur Congress had his UN pass permanently revoked at the New York headquarters,
and media representing persecuted people from Pakistan’s Balochistan region were denied access to the European headquarters in Geneva.
People from countries suffering from serious domestic human rights abuses now serve as UN officials judging the human rights of other nations.
This bitter irony vividly exposes the hypocrisy of the United Nations itself.
To be continued.