
The US is expected to announce intentions to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council due to anti-Israel bias, Reuters reports. John Fisher, the head of the Human Rights Watch, has said that they expect the US Ambassador will call for reforms. “Our understanding is that it is going to be a message of engagement and reform,” Fisher said. The American ambassador in the UN is going to visit Geneva later to discuss the possible withdrawal. “When the council passes more than 70 resolutions against Israel, a country with a strong human rights record, and just seven resolutions against Iran, a country with an abysmal human rights record, you know something is seriously wrong,” the ambassador said. The Council passed a landmark resolution which condemned violence and discrimination against LGBT people in 2014.The motions welcome “positive developments at the international, regional and national levels in the fight against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”