U.N. Unanimously Votes to Suspend Libya from Human Rights Council Hillary Rodham Clinton at U.N. Human Rights Council podium (AP Images) Secretary

Washington — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed the unanimous vote by all 192 member nations of the United Nations General Assembly to suspend Libya from the U.N. Human Rights Council due to its government’s violent attacks on protesters opposed to Muammar Qadhafi’s rule.

“Today’s historic action is the first time that any country serving on the Human Rights Council, or the Commission before it, has ever had its membership suspended,” Clinton said in a March 1 statement. “The international community is speaking with one voice and our message is unmistakable: These violations of universal rights are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”

The secretary said that through its vote, the General Assembly “has made it clear that governments that turn their guns on their own people have no place on the Human Rights Council,” and she said the United States continues to demand “an immediate halt to the violence perpetrated by the Qadhafi government against its own citizens.”

Speaking in New York March 1, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations Susan Rice described the vote as “unprecedented” and “a harsh rebuke — but one that Libya’s leaders have brought down upon themselves.”

Libya was elected to the 47-member council in May 2010. The final tally of the vote on the resolution calling for its suspension far exceeded the two-thirds majority that was required to approve it.

The United States was a co-sponsor of the resolution. Rice said the General Assembly’s action sends “another clear warning to Mr. Qadhafi and those who still stand by him” that they “must stop the killing” in Libya.

“When the only way a leader can cling to power is by grossly and systematically violating his own people’s human rights, he has lost any legitimacy to rule. He must go, and he must go now,” Rice said.

Rice applauded the U.N. body for its “historic decision,” and said it had acted “in the noblest traditions of the United Nations.”

“Membership on the Human Rights Council should be earned through respect for human rights, and not accorded to those who abuse them,” Rice said.

The resolution followed passage of a measure by the Geneva-based council on February 25 that recommended Libya’s suspension due to its “gross and systematic violations of human rights.” The Human Rights Council also called for the dispatch of “an independent, international commission of inquiry” to investigate alleged human rights violations.

During the council’s February 25 session, U.S. Ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said Libya’s continued participation in the body “undermines the core mission of the council and its mandate and goals.”