How did these countries ever qualify to be on a UN Human Rights Council?

According to the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) website, the first purpose of the UN Human Rights Council is to strengthen and protect human rights around the globe (here). The second purpose is to address human rights violations--and to make recommendations about those violations (ibid).

These are serious goals. But there's an equally serious--perhaps even fatal--problem with this Council. Of the 47 Members of the UNHRC (here), 14 are not free countries (here).

That's a problem. 

To protect human rights, you have to know what it means for a country to  offer its citizens human rights. Un-free countries do not typically offer their citizens human rights. It's why they're called  'un-free'.

By contrast, a free country knows exactly what human rights are--and how they're supposed to work. They have a known rights track record.  

Free countries understand human rights for women and gays. Free countries know how to protect the human rights of racial and ethnic groups. It's part of what makes them 'free' countries.

On what rational basis are the 14 un-free countries on the UN Human Rights Council qualified to serve on a Council that's supposed to protect human rights? If these un-free countries can't--or won't--protect the human rights of their own citizens why trust them to protect someone else's rights?

To understand what it means to have the UNHRC loaded with countries where basic universal human rights are not practiced, consider this question: would you trust someone who employs people who care little about proper plumbing maintenance to fix a plumbing problem in your house?

That's what it's like to turn to un-free countries to make informed decisions about human rights. To repeat: if these countries won't treat their own people fairly, why does the UN believe they are qualified to judge your country fairly?

This problem is compounded when you consider that, in addition to those 14 un-free countries, there are an additional 12 Members on the UNHRC considered to be only 'Partly Free' (here). This means that a total of 26 Members of a human rights organization--greater than 55 percent of Membership--have little (or no) experience with human rights. With such a Membership, how competent can this Council be? 

It gets worse. The UNHRC is stuffed with countries known to be significant human rights violators. For example, Members Tunisia, Hungary, Venezuela, Kenya, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and United Arab Emirates were among the top 20 countries in the world with the steepest decline in scores for political rights and civil liberties in 2017 (here, p. 6).  Why are these countries on a Council designed to protect anyone's human rights?

Saudi Arabia is in a special category all to itself: it has a history of being, year-after-year, on the list of the world's top 10 worst rights violators (ibid). Why is it on the UNHRC?

Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Mexico and, again, Saudi Arabia, are on a 'freedom watch list' because of their anti-democratic trajectory (ibid, p.9). What are these countries doing on a Human Rights Council? 

Burundi, Ethiopia, Venezuela, Hungary, Mexico, Rwanda and Kenya are on a list of the countries with the largest 10-year freedom declines (ibid, p. 10). What do these countries know about human rights, when their longer-term rights track-records all point in the opposite direction? 

Venezuela oppresses its citizens with violence (here). It limits freedom of the press (ibid). It jails those who oppose the current regime (ibid). What is Venezuela doing on a human rights Council?

In 2017, instead of increasing freedom and rights, China began a "broad and sustained" offensive against  human rights in China (here). Why is China on a Human Rights Council?

Because it is so painfully clear that Members of the UNHRC violate their own citizen's human rights, we can ask a question. Do these countries really serve on the UNHRC to protect human rights, or do they serve on UNHRC to use their Council Membership to steer the Council away from their own violations (here)?

I think we know the answer to that question. It's an answer that makes the UNHRC look more like a safe harbor for corrupt rights abusers than a guardian of world human rights.

It's existence makes the UN look like a criminal enterprise.