UN agency appoints Special Rapporteur to investigate human rights violations in Russia

The UN Human Rights Council has voted to establish a Special Rapporteur to monitor and assess human rights abuses in Russia.

17 member states voted in favor of creating the new position, while 24 abstained from the vote. Six countries — Bolivia, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, China, Cuba, and Eritrea — voted against the measure.

“With this vote, Council members have pledged their support to Russian civilians and civil society groups as they are under attack from an increasingly violent and totalitarian state. [...] There is a clear link between domestic repression and international aggression. The criminalization of protest, the imprisonment of human rights defenders, the silencing of the free press, and the massive propagation of disinformation are all factors which have enabled Putin to perpetrate his war of aggression in Ukraine,” International Service for Human Rights Executive Director Phil Lynch said.

In September, more than 20 Russian human rights organizations sent an open letter to the UN Human Rights Council asking its members to appoint somebody to investigate Russia’s human rights situation. Soon after, they were joined by many of the world’s largest human rights organizations.