The appointment of Iranian and Chinese diplomats to the UN Human Rights Council's advisory committee has stoked backlash from critics of the global body and Iran citing the two countries' harsh rights record.
Iran’s Afsaneh Nadipour and China’s Ren Yisheng were among seven experts selected on Tuesday for the council’s advisory committee, which is tasked with providing guidance on human rights issues.
US Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said the new appointments were “ludicrous,” questioning how governments accused of severe abuses could advise the UN on human rights.
"How do you expect countries such as China and Iran to advise this organization on human rights?” he wrote on X, adding that “one is exporting terrorism and jailing women, and the other is throwing ethnic minorities in concentration camps.”
Hillel Neuer, chief of pro-Israel watchdog UN Watch, told Fox News Digital that the United Nations “elected Beijing’s and Tehran’s loyal agents as ‘human rights experts’—without a ballot, without shame,” saying both “persecute minorities, jail anyone who speaks freely, and rule through fear and censorship.”
Iranian-American activist Lawdan Bazargan condemned Nadipour’s selection, calling it “a slap in the face to the courageous women of Iran.”
“She has served a regime that forces hijab, allows child marriage and imprisons women’s rights activists,” Bazargan wrote on X.
Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the hawkish Washington-based thinktank the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), also condemned the move in a post on X. “The Islamic Republic has been elected to the UN ‘Human Rights’ Council. The UN is a blight on humanity,” he wrote.
According to Amnesty International, China was the world’s leading executioner in 2024, followed by Iran in second place.
Amnesty said while Beijing keeps its execution figures secret, Iran was responsible for at least 972 executions last year—about 64 percent of the total of 1,518 executions globally.
This month, Iran has executed 72 people in the first nine days of October, bringing the total number of executions this year to at least 1,172.
In addition to executions, rights groups have documented widespread suppression of free speech and assembly in Iran, where activists, journalists and minorities face arbitrary detention.
In China, rights groups including Amnesty International have documented mass incarceration of Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, along with systematic censorship and repression of dissent.
