In the Atlasian Senate and House of Representatives,
Whereas the United Nations Human Rights Council plays a key role in picking the world's body human rights investigators — including global monitors on freedom of speech, health, enforced disappearances, and arbitrary detention;
Whereas members of the UNHRC panel will be able to influence the selection of at least 17 UN human rights mandate-holders over the next year, known as special procedures, who investigate, monitor, and publicly report on either specific country situations, or on thematic issues in all parts of the world, such as freedom of speech and religion;
Whereas the People's Republic of China routinely imposes draconian censorship and has forcibly disappeared citizens who express dissent like the executive Ren Zhiqiang, who called President Xi Jinping a ‘clown’ over the country's coronavirus response — as well as upwards of a 1 million Muslim Uyghur and minority group members;
Whereas the Chinese government is widely considered to commit gross and systematic violations of human rights affecting its 1.3 billion people, including human rights activists;
Resolved, that the Atlasian Senate and House of Representatives—
(1) affirm the basic human rights of all peoples, including but not limited to the right to life and liberty, freedom from slavery and torture, freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of religion, and the right to work and education; and
(2) oppose and condemn the inclusion of the People's Republic of China in the United Nations Human Rights Council, which threatens to undermine the credibility of the UN’s highest human rights body and is liable to cast a shadow upon the United Nations as a whole.
