Cuba has secured a spot on the new United Nations human rights council, the board that replaced a previous one, which was intended to keep countries like Zimbabwe and Burma off these boards.

Cuba is the biggest human rights violator in the hemisphere. It is one of the few tyrannies in the world that refuses its citizens the right to leave, effectively turning it into an island prison. It has one of the world’s highest suicide rates. Its locals without party connections get no health care, and in fact are denied education if their parents are dissidents. Its residents are not allowed to keep dollar remittances sent by relatives, and instead must accept vile Cuban pesos at rates determined by Castro. Its dissidents are tortured, imprisoned and beaten. It is one of the most horrible places on the face of the earth. Its residents brave shark-infested waters to reach someplace, any place, where they can at long last breathe free air.

The U.S., wisely, opted to stay off this United Nations board, knowing full well that countries like Cuba could gerrymander the new system to be on it. It’s quite a reflection on the workings of the United Nations that this should be the state of affairs now. The UN is now more irrelevant than ever.

It truly astonishing that any nation would vote for this pariah state on the United Nations’ Human Rights Council. It has a human rights record that would blanch an onyx. The Real Cuba has the real story about Fidel Castro’s island hellhole at this site here.

Val at Babalu blog sums it up very succinctly here. (and don’t miss the hilarious comments section there!)

UPDATE: Interestingly, Iran and Venezuela, two active predator states, were explicitly rejected.

UPDATE: China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia are also on the Council. Here is the rest of the list:

The other winners were Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania and Ukraine.

The 13 African winners were Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia and Zambia.

The 13 Asians elected to the council were Bangladesh, Bahrain, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka.

In Latin American and the Caribbean, the eight seats went to Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay.

The seven countries elected from the Western bloc were Britain, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands and Switzerland.