\n Kenya joined 143 other UN member states in backing a second four-year term for Volker T\u00fcrk as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, brushing aside objections from the United States and Russia.\n <\/p>\n
\n The overwhelming vote by the 193-member UN General Assembly (UNGA) extends T\u00fcrk\u2019s mandate from October 12, 2026 to October 11, 2030.\n <\/p>\n
\n A total of 144 countries voted in favour of Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres\u2019 recommendation to reappoint the Austrian lawyer, while 10 voted against and 13 abstained.\n <\/p>\n
\n Before the final vote, the General Assembly rejected a Russian proposal that sought to extend T\u00fcrk\u2019s mandate by only about two months, until the end of 2026.\n <\/p>\n
\n T\u00fcrk has emerged as one of the UN\u2019s most outspoken human rights officials, criticising Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine, Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza, and calling for investigations into deaths in US immigration detention centres.\n <\/p>\n
\n His positions have drawn criticism from Moscow, Tel Aviv and Washington.\n <\/p>\n
\n Ahead of the vote, the United States warned it would review its funding and cooperation with the United Nations if T\u00fcrk\u2019s mandate was renewed.\n <\/p>\n
\n According to Reuters, the vote underscored growing tensions between President Donald Trump\u2019s administration and the United Nations over the direction of the global human rights agenda.\n <\/p>\n
\n T\u00fcrk, who has served as UN High Commissioner since 2022, will become the first holder of the office to complete two full four-year terms.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenya joined 143 other UN member states in backing a second four-year term for Volker T\u00fcrk as United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347247,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[31],"tags":[84,80,167366,517,96,167367,749,167369,167368,74504,134744,24611],"class_list":["post-347309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-kenya","tag-headlines","tag-kenya","tag-kenya-backs-second-term-for-un-rights-chief-volker-turk-despite-us","tag-national","tag-news","tag-russia-opposition","tag-un","tag-un-high-commissioner","tag-un-high-commissioner-for-human-rights-volker-turk","tag-un-secretary-general-antonio-guterres","tag-unga","tag-volker-turk"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@africa\/116980214903482454","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}