On Tuesday night in Geneva, governments of the world will choose the four replacement nations to serve on the UN Human Rights Council. The 47 members of the core council rotate seats, with each member serving for three years. This year's election presents a particularly noteworthy seven countries for the selection process. All candidates are serial abusers of human rights. Asean, with its "all support one" policy, has been dragged into voting for the worst of all in the group.
Vietnam's constitution guarantees freedom of speech, but Article 258 of the country's penal code is about "abusing democratic freedoms against the interests of the state". Giving freedom with one hand, and taking it away by state-enforced laws on the other is a common trait shared by all of today's abusive governments.
Every country up for election to the UNHRC this week has such constitutions and laws: Syria, China, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Vietnam.
Those making the equivalence argument should be ignored. No country has a perfect human rights record. But there are countries that recognise the need for human rights. Many countries strive to broaden their citizens' rights. Then there is Vietnam and its six companions in the 2013 election process.
Vietnam imprisons people for criticising the government. It is a systemic, proclaimed government policy. There is not a single independent media voice in the nation which reports or comments on political issues. There is, however, a gulag of individuals who try. Last week, Amnesty International condemned yet another alarming crackdown on those who write or voice criticism of the government.
It also lists 75 prisoners of conscience, each of whom has been locked up for years for suggesting the government has flaws, or that the country could use different policies.
It is not just that Vietnam takes such actions in direct defiance of its own constitution. Abuse of such rights takes place in many countries. It is, rather, that Vietnam acts against Vietnamese as a matter of policy, and then defends the action. Just over a week ago, in a case that could have come from Kafka, the "people's court" of southern Long An province sentenced Dinh Nhat Uy, 30, to 15 months in prison. Uy was convicted of posting, on Facebook, criticism of the government for jailing his brother _ who had criticised the government. The sentence was suspended indefinitely, so long as Uy remains well-behaved. Translation: If he posts another word about the case on Facebook during very restrictive probation amounting to house arrest, it's off to prison.
Asean should show some shame or protest over being dragooned into supporting the Hanoi bid. It should admonish Vietnam for its systemic abuses. Unfortunately, Asean's Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) is one of the least effective such groups in the world. The idea of suggesting an improvement to a fellow Asean member, let along criticising such a government, remains unthinkable.
The problem for the UNHRC, and thus for the world, is not the presence of candidates with documented human rights problems. It is the total absence, in any of this year's seven candidate-nations, of any commitment to end those abuses. The United Nations should have no room on the Human Rights Council for nations who abuse basic rights as a matter of official policy.