Evita Nursanty, a Member of the Committee of Inter Parliamentary Cooperation of the Indonesian House of Representatives, was dissapointed with US’s decision to withdraw from the UN Human Right Council (UN HRC). She believed that the UN HRC served as a multilateral cooperation forum, as well as the international community’s proof of commitment to uphold and advance human rights protection.

This was stated following US’ decision to withdraw from the Council as it was announced by the US State Secretary Michael Richard Pompeo and US Ambassador to UN Nikki Haley at a Press conference Monday afternoon local time.

”Indonesia deeply regret US’s decision to withdraw from HRC, particularly when it was just based on US’ support of Israel, while the International Community are still debating over this issue. Indonesia keeps supporting the reform  in the UN HRC and in other UN Agencies and believes that the process will need support from its member states by staying in the HRC,” Evita said in a press release on 20 June 2018. 

She stated that the UN HRC is important for those weak community in all over the world to get protected from various human rights violations.

With US withdrawing, sheadded, the international community will question the commitment of the super-power country, who wanted to be a global leader in promoting and protecting the human rights and peace as well as prosperity all over the world.

“Moreover, before its withdrawing, US administration has also withdrawn from other multilateral process or mechanis msuch as the Paris Agreement, UNESCO, Global Compact Migration, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian Nuclear deal,” she added.

She admitted, the UN HRC’s performance has not been satisfying, but the reform process, as required of several other UN agencies such as UN Security Council and UN General Assembly, needs political and multilateral cooperation commitment from all UN member states.

Therefore, she supports the step taken by the Indonesian Goevrnment along with other countries to continue contributing and cooperating in upholding and advancing the human rights protection, through multilateral cooperation, according to the mandate of the UN HRC, including strengthening the UN HRC performance.

 “We give our support to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia to uphold and promote the protection of human rights through multilateral cooperation and strengthening the UN HRC performance,” she said. (ann/sf-muiz)