Irish Examiner View: China's appointment to Human Rights Council undermines credibility

China's appointment undermines the credibility of the United Nations Human Rights Council itself.

China has just been appointed to the United Nations Human Rights Council, giving it a large element of control over choosing candidates to investigate and report on issues such as freedom of speech and movement in countries worldwide.

According to Hillel Neuer, director of UN Watch, a Geneva-based NGO, “allowing China’s oppressive and inhumaneregime to choose the world investigators on freedom of speech, arbitrary detention, and enforced disappearances is like making a pyromaniac into the town fire chief”.