The United Nations thinks Saudi Arabia is a defender of human rights

By Ann Telnaes

The United Nations has named an official from Saudi Arabia to head a UN Human Rights Council panel. The appointment, which was made in June but not reported until recently, comes after multiple beheadings by the Saudi kingdom and the continued imprisonment of Raif Badawi, a blogger who has to date received 50 of his 1000 lashes sentence. This isn’t the first time the UN has made a tone-deaf human rights appointment.  In 2001 Sudan, whose government backed militias which took slaves during the Sudanese civil war, was named to a UN human rights commission as well.