The news outlet Lenta referring to Reuters report that the UN Human Rights Council announced the record number of states victimizing human rights activists for cooperation with the UN.
U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour reports that nine of the states named in the report, which retaliate against citizens are current members of the 47-country U.N. Human Rights Council. These include Burundi, Egypt, Rwanda, Cuba, Venezuela, China, India, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The other 20 countries in the report which retaliated against human rights activities for cooperating with the UN were Algeria, Bahrain, Eritrea, Honduras, Iran, Israel, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
Gilmour said that human right activists were detained, lose their jobs, have their homes or offices raided, or were targeted by travel bans or asset freezes.Many cases involved arbitrary detention and torture, sometimes by sexual assault or rape.
Some countries “justify” reprisal against human rights defenders by saying the individuals were terrorists or cooperating with foreign entities.
Let us recall that in August a female human rights activist Natalya Shabunts was verbally assaulted in Ashgabat.
Two females followed the activist and yelled with swear words that she should get back to Russia and that they “have a good life in their wonderful country!” It appears that the assault is related to Natalya Shabunts’ active citizenship.