UNITED NATIONS, May 17: The United Nations General Assembly voted here on Thursday to reject a bid by Belarus to join the Human Rights council, a move hailed by rights campaigners and the United States.

Haya Rashed Al Khalifa of Bahrain, the president of the assembly, announced that Angola, South Africa, Madagascar, Egypt, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Qatar, Slovenia, Bosnia, Nicaragua, Bolivia, the Netherlands and Italy had been selected to join the panel.

Sixteen countries were in contention for the 14 seats being allocated on a regional basis. The most closely watched contest was the three-way race for the two seats up for grabs in the East European Group. Slovenia was elected with 188 votes in the first round while Bosnia edged Belarus 112 to 72 in the second.

“I think it is an enormously important moment,” Steve Crawshaw, a spokesman for Human Rights Watch, told AFP. “Belarus has an appalling track record on human rights and yet until very recently it seemed confident that it could be voted to the world’s leading human rights body. That would have been an insult to human rights victims everywhere.

“The very clear defeat for Belarus today is important in itself but I hope it will also send a message to abusive governments around the world that they should not be seeking membership of the human rights council in the future.”—AFP