UNITED NATIONS — UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. human rights chief Volker Türk faces a vote Friday for a second four-year term but faces opposition from critics and some countries over his criticism of Israel’s attacks on Gaza and his approach to China’s crackdown on its Uyghur minority.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres quietly nominated the Austrian lawyer for a second term. After private consultations but no public debate, the 193-member General Assembly scheduled a vote on his re-election for Friday afternoon.

Former Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth called it “a stealth procedure” to avoid scrutiny by civil society and the public.

The job of the UN human rights chief, by its nature, is complicated: it requires denouncing rights violations committed by the governments of the countries that are part of the world organization. For example, Türk has harshly criticized the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Türk’s term expires on October 11, and Russia’s Mission to the UN said it has proposed extending his mandate only until December 31, the day Guterres’ second five-year term as secretary-general ends.

Russia called Guterres’ effort to give Türk four more years as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights “unprecedented.” None of his predecessors has served two full terms since the position was created in 1993.

An extension only until the end of the year would leave the election of a new human rights chief in the hands of the next secretary-general. Six candidates are competing to be the new head of the UN.

Guterres sent letters to United Nations regional groups earlier this month informing them of his intention to reappoint Türk. The African group had no objections, but the Latin American countries did have several, including Nicaragua, Argentina and Paraguay.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry called Guterres’ move to secure a second term for Türk, the U.N. secretary-general, the “ultimate moral failure” and said on social media that the choice should be left to his successor.

“After years of bias against Israel, the answer is accountability, not rewriting the rules,” the ministry said.

U.N. spokesman Stéphane Dujarric says Guterres is following the 1993 resolution that established a U.N. high commissioner for human rights and allows for a second term.

“The secretary general is doing things very transparently, following the rules and his authority,” Dujarric told reporters on Friday. “Prior to this consultations were held with member states and regional groups.”

Türk “is ready to serve” a new mandate, human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said. He noted that the work requires the “promotion and protection of human rights everywhere and, as part of this, he sees his role as collaborating with all states.”

As human rights chief, the former UN official who worked for Guterres at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Türk has raised concerns about issues in China as diverse as the fate of detainees – such as artist Gao Zhen, lawyer Yu Wensheng and media mogul Jimmy Lai – and counterterrorism and assimilation practices affecting ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs in the regions of Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and Tibet.

Critics insist he could have done more to publicly follow up on a report issued by his predecessor, former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, that said China’s discriminatory detention of Uighurs and other largely Muslim ethnic groups in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity.

Türk has also not joined independent UN human rights experts who have accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians during its war against Hamas in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies those claims.

Roth called Türk “a disaster” and said “the biggest stain on Turk’s reputation is his complete abandonment of the Uyghurs.” He called them victims of the most severe state persecution Türk has ever ignored.

The Chinese government denies that Uyghurs have been or are being persecuted. He maintains that his policies in Xinjiang eliminated terrorism and religious extremism after sporadic episodes of violence rocked the region in previous decades.

Türk has used both private engagement with Beijing and public advocacy to support human rights in China, his office said. Roth called this “an admission that he is doing nothing, that he is putting the plight of the Uyghurs on the back burner and just pretending to care.”

Roth said Türk has a major problem because the U.N. human rights commissioner’s job “should be to generate public pressure, and you do that by being tough, provocative and timely.”

“He’s managed to make a powerful position largely innocuous,” speaking about the issues in a way “that makes people’s eyes glaze over,” Roth said.

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Associated Press writers Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Farnoush Amiri in New York contributed to this report.