Russia Suspended From U.N. Human Rights Council

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: The European Union has been very, very clear. And they have launched all sorts of punitive measures against Russia and against the Putin regime, including the U.N. Human Rights Council has actually managed to isolate Russia a little bit further internationally by having it suspend itself from or suspending it from that council. What is your reaction to that? And how do you think that will be effective?

DUNJA MIJATOVIC, COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Well, I do hope it will be effective. There is a need — and I think these were strong, strong political signals. I can talk about myself and my engagement with Russian Federation. I think we all, in international organizations, we reached the limit. We tried everything. And these measures, excluding or suspending member states from different international organizations, of course, is not something we’d like to see. But if you have a member state starting the war, bombing the cities, then, of course, there are measures that need to be taken in order to really raise the alarm and to say, stop the war, stop the killing. I was on my way to Zugdidi, to Abkhazia. I was in Georgia when a colleague of mine told me in a car they’re bumping Kyiv. And, of course, it brought the memories of Sarajevo being bombed, and all these horrifying scenes that we saw in Bucha and other places. And it is extremely difficult to understand the reasoning behind it. What can be more important than human life? No politics, no issues related to all these excuses that we heard in the last month-and-a-half on why this war has started. I mean, this is not going to bring any happiness to people or to societies as a whole. So I think this is the moment that there are also certain changes in order to see international organizations being more capable of achieving peace and helping countries that are in a similar situation as Ukraine. Of course, my mandate is very limited. I’m a human rights commissioner. I work with human rights defenders, with journalists. I make sure that journalists can be safe. And there are already cases of journalists being killed in Ukraine `and also attacked, including a CNN crew. So this is also something that I can engage with. But none of this is going to be fruitful. And we will not see the real results if the shooting and bombing does not stop.