GENEVA, September 11, 2015 - The United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom were asked today to take action at a UN session that opens on Monday to suspend Venezuela from its membership on the world body’s 47-nation Human Rights Council, in reaction to the controversial Caracas verdict of 13 years in jail issued yesterday against opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, and over other “gross and systematic violations of human rights.”
The draft resolution (HTML version) was submitted today to the four influential UNHRC member states by the Geneva-based non-governmental organization UN Watch, which recently invited Mr. Lopez’s wife, Lilian Tintori, to address the council.