The United Nations General Assembly is expected Tuesday to vote on placing China on its Human Rights Council despite its treatment of Uygher Muslims, some one million of whom have been held in detention camps.China is one of 16 nations vying for 15 seats three-year seats on the 47-member council, which holds annual elections for its rotating membership.Many of the seats are uncontested, so Cuba and Russia would likely be elected automatically, based on geographic groupings. China is in the only contested election, where there are five countries vying for UNHRC seats through the Asia-Pacific group. Other countries on the list are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan and Nepal.The United Kingdom’s Shadow Foreign Secretary, Labour’s Lisa Nandy wrote a letter to the country’s foreign secretary Dominic Raab, asking that the UK oppose China’s UNHRC membership.“The U.K. must publicly oppose China’s re-election to the UN Human Rights Council and show that our support for the Uyghur people goes beyond warm words and empty rhetoric,” Nandy wrote.In her letter she wrote, there are reports of forced labor, mass internment and forced sterilization of Uygher Muslims.“These acts are, prima facie, a crime against humanity. It may be that, on certain accounts, the acts share some of the features of genocide, within the meaning of the 1948 Convention,” she said.Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth wrote, “It takes audacity for the Chinese government to think it deserves a seat on the UNHRC as it detains more than one million Uighur/Turkic Muslims to force them to abandon Islam and their culture.”Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva based NGO UN Watch, called for the UN to end elections to the UNHRC and to open it up to all of the UN’s 193 members.To limit UNHRC membership to 47-countries based on an election, gives a status symbol to those countries who are elected but whose nations have a poor human rights record.“We have to consider scrapping the entire election process” because “the elections have no effect other than a negative effect of allowing those countries to parade themselves around the word as elected members and it does not have the desired effect of keeping them off,: he said.The resolution that created the UNHRC in 2006 said that membership should be based on the nation’s human rights records, but that resolution is rarely adhered to, he said.The history of the UNHRC has shown that too often “most of the worst abusers get elected,” Neuer said.The result of Tuesday’s elections “is that most likely China, Russia, Cuba Pakistan and Saudi Arabia will be elected,” he said.Elected human rights abusers to the UNHRC “go around the world and say look at me, I have a badge of approval. The moment after the elections happened, you will see the media proudly proclaiming how wonderful they are and how the .. international community chose them to be on the human rights body,” Neuer said.He explained that even in non-contested races each country must receive 97 votes, so that if UN members abstain, countries like China will not be elected.“We urge all member states not to vote fo those countries who have poor human rights records even if there are no competition in their group,” Neuer said.The United States and Israel have long complained about the UNHRC failure to tackle true human rights issues and charging that it has provided a haven for human rights abusers. In particular both countries have accused the UNHRC of bias against Israel, particularly given that it approves more resolution against the Jewish state than any other nation during a given year.Tuesday’s election will likely weaken support for Israel at the UNHRC, given that two countries Australia and the Czech Republic which end their terms in 2020 are likely to be replaced by nations with a voting record that is less sympathetic to Israel.