Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein said that he could have obtained another term as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights if he had agreed to curb his criticism of human rights abuses around the world.
“It was clear to me that if I wanted an extension, what they would have asked me to do is not to discuss this issue or that issue and to start bargaining. And I wasn’t going to be holding a position like this and then remain silent,” he said.
In the five-minute video, he also describes Western leaders as “morally weak, shortsighted and mediocre … and no longer willing or able to the defend the human rights of all people.”
More specifically, he points to repeated massacres of civilians in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition, which groups a number of states including Bahrain and the UAE, have killed tens of thousands since March 2015.
“I don’t recall ever hearing heavy condemnation of those airstrikes,” Al Hussein said in reference to Saudi-led aerial attacks.
“What is says about Western leaders, well it doesn’t say very much,” he added. “The way they prioritize their defense contracts seems to produce silence. So there may well be a connection, an axis, between weapons sales and the resulting muted response by Western governments to what was happening in Yemen.”
Al Hussein served as the UN human rights chief from 2014 to 2018.
Source: New York Times, Edited by Website Team
