Head of the Center for Civil Liberties Oleksandra Matviychuk, sent a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, which Ukrainians and Latin Americans jointly signed with a request to suspend Russia's membership in the Assembly, the press service of the Center for Civil Liberties said on Tuesday.

"Russia is trying very hard to spread the narrative that the countries of the so-called Global South are sympathetic to or at least willing to turn a blind eye to war crimes in Russia. In fact, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and other Latin American countries have an outstanding history of holding those responsible for such crimes accountable and are willing to share their experience in protecting international law and Latin America's interests in the field of human rights, calling a spade a spade," Matviychuk said in the statement.

The document has reportedly already been signed by over 20 former Latin American foreign ministers, including Antonia Urrejola, Alejandro Foxley, Ignacio Walker, Mariano Fernandez and Alfredo Moreno from Chile, Jorge Castaneda from Mexico, Celso Lafer from Brazil, José Antonio García Belaúnde and Diego Sayan from Peru, Noemi Sanín and Guillermo Fernández de Soto from Colombia and Eduardo Stein from Guatemala.

In addition, the document was signed by many prominent Latin American human rights defenders, most of whom held important positions within the Inter-American Human Rights System or the UN. Claudio Grossman and Juan Mendez, well-known human rights defenders against torture in the Southern Cone and later at the UN, top the list.

"As Latin Americans, we feel this particularly acutely. Latin America has contributed significantly to the prohibition of the use of force provided for in Article 2.4 of the UN Charter, as well as many other aspects of the development of international law and human rights, such as the codification of the crime of enforced disappearance in the Rome Statute. Having lived through many ourselves, we believe that norms should not be applied selectively," the letter says.

The Center for Civil Liberties (CCL) was founded in 2007 to promote human rights values, and is the winner of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize.