The United Nations General Assembly replaced Russia with Czech Republic on the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday following Russia’s suspension in April.
The General Assembly in a secret ballot voting elected Czech Republic to fill the vacant seat created by Russia’s suspension.
A large number of Member States voted in favor of the European country – 180 of the General Assembly’s 193 members deposited ballots. The result was 157 countries in favor of the Czech Republic and 23 abstentions.
Czech Republic was reportedly the only candidate for the seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council. Seats on the Geneva-based council are divided among regional groups and a replacement for Russia had to come from an East European country.
Recall that the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in April voted to suspend Russia from the organization’s leading human rights body amid allegations that Russian soldiers killed civilians while retreating from a region around Ukraine’s capital.
With that, Moscow became the first permanent member of the UN Security Council to ever have its membership revoked from any United Nations body.