U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will help kick off the latest and longest-ever session of the U.N.'s top human rights body on Monday, with Iran's foreign minister, a senior Russian envoy, and the top diplomats of France and Germany among scores of leaders set to take part.
The council, made up of 47 members, takes up an extensive array of human rights issues — including discrimination, the freedom of religion, right to housing or the deleterious impact of economic sanctions targeting governments on regular people — as well as country “situations” like those in Afghanistan, Syria, Myanmar, Nicaragua and South Sudan. It usually meets three times a year.
On Monday, among the speakers after Guterres and the presidents of Congo, Montenegro and Colombia, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian will come up between Germany's Annalena Baerbock and France's Catherine Colonna. China's foreign minister, Qin Gang, is set to make a statement by video. that erupted in Iran after the death in September of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini following her arrest by the country’s morality police.
A year ago, scores of diplomats walked out of the council chamber as Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov appeared by video, to express their opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine days earlier. He had originally been set to attend in person but many Western countries closed their airspace to flights from Russia after the invasion.