UN’s Human Rights Council delivers human rights report card for China

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/02/09/18569201.php

UN’s Human Rights Council delivers human rights report card for China

by al-masakin
Monday Feb 9th, 2009 10:42 AM

China urged to abolish the death penalty, to disclose a statistic of the numbers of those executed, to adopt the Optional Protocol Convention against Torture (OP-CAT), to ratify International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to reduce the numbers of those living in poverty, to combat child labor, to adopt the Rome Statute of the ICC, and to establish a National Human Rights Institution, in accordance with the Paris Principle, ratify International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICRMW), Optional Protocol Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (OP- CEDAW), that China make an open declaration of its intention to follow article 14 International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) which permits victims of discrimination to complain to the Council, The Committee on Rights of the Child suggested that China ratify the Palermo Protocol to Prevent Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Person, ant to ratify International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED).

china_human_rights_report_9feb09.pdf
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By Edward Campbell

Missoula, Feb. 9 (Al-Masakin)—The UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) released the findings of its Human Rights Council (UNHCR) at it Universal Periodic Review (UPR) today in Geneva.

The Human Rights Council, established June 18, 2007 in order to fulfill UN resolution 60/251 March 15, 2006, replaced the UN Human Rights Commission. The principle function of the UNHRC is to assess human rights situations in its 192 member states, to persuade them to adhere to the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to convince member states to adopt the Council’s resolutions, protocols and statutes, and to improve the overall human rights situation on the ground. The current session of the UPR will end Feb. 13.

The Human Rights Council has both an advisory committee and a complaint procedure. The UPR began with the review for Morocco in 2008 and will end with the review for Moldova in 2011. The human rights record for the United States is scheduled to take place at the UPR’s 9th Session in 2010. The initial 47 members of the Council, which includes China, Cuba, the Russian Federation, and Saudi Arabia, are to be reviewed first. The U.S. State Department’s acting Press Secretary Robert Wood said Feb.5 that the United States is not participating in the UPR because the new administration has not determined whether or not to support the Council.

“We want to make sure that we have a very coherent, cohesive policy with regard to engaging the UN and other actors in the international human rights system, and I would just look at it through that prism. That’s what we’re trying to do. We’re not trying to send any signals at this moment one way or the other. We want to take a very, very close and hard look at how we can best engage these international actors,” Mr. Wood said Feb. 5.

The United States did not participate in the UPR for China.

China’s national report was presented by Li Baodong, Permanent Representative of China to the United Nations Office at Geneva, who noted, inter alia, the first human rights system in China was established in 1949 when the People’s Republic of China (PRC) was founded and claimed that the modernization drive initiated in 1978 had enhanced human rights in the country, which the representative referred to as ‘two historic leaps’ from poverty to subsistence to prosperity, and said that the numbers of persons living rural poverty had decreased from 250 million in 1949 to a little over 14 million in 2009.

It was also noted that China was the first country in the world to meet the poverty reduction target set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and that by the end of 2000 primary education was universal throughout the country and illiteracy has virtually been eliminated. Moreover, China has met ahead of schedule the targets of universal primary education and eliminating gender disparity in primary and secondary education set in the MDGs.

The representative further noted that since 1978 more than 250 laws protecting human rights had been enacted and that there were more than 400,000 registered NGOs in the PRC working to advance the cause of human rights in China.

Positive Achievements

During the three hour discussion the delegations of the Working Group and its Observers noted a number of positive achievements with respect to in human rights goals for China.

These included the rapid economic growth experienced in the country; the efforts to empower women; the enactment of a National Human Rights Action Plan to accelerate social development; increased investments in social security; humanitarian and development assistance efforts; the overall progress achieved in the area of economic, social and cultural rights; reforms made in the area of the administration of the death penalty since January 2007; the provision of free and compulsory education; the enactment of the National Action Plan on Human Rights for 2009-2010; the implementation of the Scientific Outlook on Development; and the realization of the poverty reduction target per the Millennium Development Goals.

Criticism

The 47 member Working Group and its Observers raised a number of issues and concerns with respect to human rights in the PRC including: the challenges faced by the people on account of the economic crisis, China’s strategy to expand its social service polices; steps taken or planned to engage countries at the regional and international level in dialogue on human rights; efforts to enhance labor rights and the rights of migrant workers; progress made in improving the situation of re-education through labor; progress made in upholding the rights of mentally disabled persons; measures envisaged to prevent child labor; and plans to accede to the Convention of the Rights of Migrant Workers and All Members of Their Families.

Other issues pertained to the arbitrary detention of ethnic minorities; the status of the application of the policies to address the needs of refugees from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea; plans to strengthen protection of Chinese media; plans to implement recommendations by the Committee against Torture as to safeguards the treatment of human rights defenders and protections for defense lawyers; efforts to effectively combat torture of persons in detention facilities; steps to guarantee the independence of the judiciary; and plans to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Recommendations

To strengthen the protection of ethnic minorities’ religious, socio-economic and political rights; to allow ethnic minorities to fully exercise their human rights, to preserve their cultural identity and ensure their participation in decision-making; to respect the basic rights of minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet; to ensure that greater access is granted to Tibet areas for OHCHR and other United Nations bodies, as well as diplomats and the international media; to extend new media regulations as regards access to information to Chinese journalists; to investigate harassment and detention of human rights defenders; to accept different opinions if expressed by human rights defenders through peaceful demonstration; to respond positively to outstanding visit requests by Special Procedures and issue a standing invitation; and to renew the memorandum of understanding with OHCHR to intensify technical assistance and advisory services in the field of human rights.

Other recommendations included: To intensity engagement with the international community to exchange best practices in law enforcement supervision; to accelerate legislative and judicial reform; to abolish administrative detention; to provide those held on State security charges with all fundamental legal safeguards, including access to counsel, public trial and sentencing, and eligibility for sentence reduction and parole; To take effective measures to ensure that lawyers can defend their clients without fear of harassment; to become party to the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court; to intensity human rights awareness campaigns and to continue to provide and improve training programs on human rights for the judiciary, law enforcement personnel and lawyers; and to establish a National Human Rights Institution, in accordance with the Paris Principle; and to proceed as soon as possible to publish the National Plan on Human Rights 2009-2010.

Several delegations called on China to abolish the death penalty, to publish statistics on the total number of executions and to introduce a moratorium on the death penalty as a first step to the abolishment of the death penalty. Others recommended that China reduce the number of crimes for which the death penalty can be imposed; continue to implement the policy of strictly controlling and applying the death penalty; implement the recommendations made by the Committee against Torture; accede to Optional Protocol Convention against Torture; and establish an independent and effective complaints procedure for victims of torture. A number of delegations also recommended that China ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Others called for the release a clear timetable for work towards the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; to guarantee all citizens the exercise of religious freedom and the freedom of belief.

Additionally, States recommended that China pursue its efforts in achieving the Millennium Development Goals; continue to provide financial resources in view of the economic crisis, in particular for Tibet; pick up efforts to bridge the gap between the rights realized between rural and urban areas; to ensure primary education attains the constitutionally guaranteed universal compulsory status; to lift current its current reservation to article 8.1a of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; speed up the implementation of the National Human Rights Action Plan on social development; and to continue its endeavor to build a sound security system.

Moreover, China was encouraged to share with the international community, and in particular developing countries, its experience with promoting the right to development and poverty reduction; to strengthen efforts in poverty alleviation to reduce the number of person living in poverty; to take effective measures to improve education training and supervision of prison staff; to address the educational balance between rural and urban areas; to adopt special measures to ensure the realization of rights in view of the economic crisis; to adopt a comprehensive policy to combat child labor; to lift reservations to the Convention on the Rights of the Child; to enact specific legislation on domestic violence; to ensure that national include legislation include the effects of discrimination against women; and to attach more importance to the protection of the Rights of the Child through national plans for economic and social development.

EHC / EHC
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Al-Masakin News Agency
http://almasakinnewsagency.wordpress.com/

UN’s UPR upbraids Saudi Arabia for rights violations, praises it for some reforms

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/02/07/18568775.php

UN’s UPR upbraids Saudi Arabia for rights violations, praises it for some reforms

by al-masakin
Saturday Feb 7th, 2009 1:40 PM

Saudi Arabia praised for reforms, upbraided for rights violations at UN’s Universal Periodic Review

Saudi Arabia chastised on rights of women, the rights of migrant workers, religious freedom, failure to ratify the Rome Statute, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), to ratify the Convention on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (ICPPED), and the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and All Members of Their Families (CRMW), inter alia.

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By Edward Campbell

Missoula, Feb. 7 (Al-Masakin)—Although the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, being a monarchy, and therefore absolutism at its very foundation, fulfilled its democratic obligation to the international community by submitting to the much feared scrutiny of the UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review on Friday; a body currently under boycott by the United States.

The Kingdom’s Zaid Al-Hussein, Vice-President of the Human Rights Commission in Saudi Arabia, noted that Saudi Arabia’s main obstacle to achieving universal human rights is the of the state transformation from a tribal society, characterized by conflicts and widely dispersed and totally unconnected regions where people lived in isolation and forms of economic and

educational backwardness. The Kingdom asserted that Islam supplemented rather than detracted from the process of achieving international human rights standards.

The representative of the Kingdom asserted that the Islamic Shari’a focused special concern for the rights of vulnerable groups such as minorities and non-Muslims, but that the government of Saudi Arabia acknowledged that there were some human rights violations which primarily fell within the context of domestic violence.

The representative said that the Saudi government was constantly endeavoring to prevent these violations by promoting greater social awareness and, where necessary, imposing deterrent penalties on their perpetrators and that women’s awareness of their rights has been considerably increased in recent years through the social development women’s centers, and the National Society for Human Rights which has adopted a policy of disseminating and promoting a legal culture, in general, and women’s rights, in particular.

The representative of the kingdom also said that Saudi Arabia seeks to achieve a balance between requirements of the campaign against terrorism and the need to respect human rights and that from the beginning of the terrorist problem in the Kingdom to the end of 2008, approximately $100 million in compensation had been paid to persons detained in terrorist cases and who were later found to be innocent.

The envoy also said that Saudi Arabia was working very seriously to combat human trafficking and that the kingdom had recently enacted the Prevention of Human Trafficking Act in order to eradicate the practice within the Kingdom.

He also noted that Saudi Arabia was in close conformity with the Paris Principles which inter alia mandated that a state vest an institution with the power to investigate and enforce human rights.

With respect to human rights, the delegations to the UPR noted a number of positive developments within the Kingdom. These included:

Measures taken to improve the rights of women in society; the creation of the National Human Rights Commission; the progress in the health infrastructure; progress in the right to housing and the establishment of a housing development fund; progress in immigration and labor laws; development and relief assistance efforts; its progress in the area of democratic process achieved; efforts to uphold the rights of migrant workers; the accession to international human rights instruments as regard the rights of children; the leading role played by Saudi Arabia in encouraging dialogue among civilizations; and the setting up of the National Society for Human Rights.

The Kingdom was, however, criticized for domestic violence within the kingdom, legislative inequality between men and women, inequality between boys and girls, forced marriages for women under 18, human trafficking, criminal responsibility for minors, human trafficking, failure to remunerate migrant workers, failure to permit individuals to pursue the enforcement of their own rights and the human rights of others, failure to sign International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), failure to permit human rights organizations to enter the country, failure to ratify the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court, and failure to effectively combat impunity.

Participating states urged Saudi Arabia to continue combating terrorism, that it end torture and corporal punishment, abolish the death penalty, amend the Code of Criminal Practice to stipulate that only individuals over 18 years old will be tried as adults, develop programs to reintegrate former prisoners into civilian life, to separate juvenile and adult prisoners, ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT), to ratify the Convention on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances (ICPPED), and to intensify efforts to reintegrate and rehabilitate persons accuses of terrorism.

The Kingdom was furthermore urged to reform its legislation to ensure religious freedom, to protect religious minorities, to play a leading role in the inter-faith dialogue, to end the practice of incarcerating, mistreating and applying travel bans against individuals on the basis of their religious beliefs, to enact and implement a Law of Association to guarantee the right to form civil society organizations and protect those organizations from government interference, to enable to establishment of civil society without supervision by State authorities, to ensure that any obstacles to freedom of expression and movement against human rights defenders were lifted and travel bans removed, to ratify the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and All Members of Their Families (CRMW), to establish a broad-based media campaign on the rights of migrants in Arabic and in the languages of migrants, to ensure that all rights were extended to all migrant workers, and to continue with programs to improve the economic, social and cultural rights in the country.

EHC / EHC
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Al-Masakin News Agency
http://almasakinnewsagency.wordpress.com/

UN Human Rights Council slams Cuba at its Universal Periodic Review

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/02/06/18568612.php

UN Human Rights Council slams Cuba at its Universal Periodic Review

by al-masakin
Friday Feb 6th, 2009 12:13 PM

UN Human Rights Council slams Cuba for rights violations at its Universal Periodic Review

Cuba praised for health care system, slammed on media rights, ignoring the Rome Statute, prisons, torture, political prisoners, the death penalty, Paris Principles, and more.

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By Edward Campbell

Missoula, Feb. 6 (Al-Masakin)—The Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review Working Group reviewed the fulfillment of human rights obligations by Cuba Feb. 5, during which 60 Council members and observers raised a number of issues pertaining to the human rights situation in the country.

Cuban Minister of Justice Maria Esther Reus Gonzales presented the National Report on Human Rights at UN Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review in Geneva on Thursday. The Justice Minister noted that the UPR for Cuba coincided with the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban revolution which made it possible to eradicate the structural injustices inherited from the colonial and neo-colonial period of domination which the country suffered from until 1959.

Issues and questions raised by the Working Group, comprised of the 47 members of the Council, and Observers participating in the interactive discussion related, among other things, the time frame for ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); legal safeguards to ensure protection of human rights defenders; the provision of human rights education in the school system; the intention of the State to abolish the death penalty; the intention of the State to extend a standing invitation to United Nations Special Procedures; information on the program to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS; plans to strengthen the independent of the judiciary; and plans to address the issue of sexual exploitation of women and girls.

A large number of delegations made comments about the effects of the US embargo on Cuba, which was in place for nearly 50 years, and its impact on the realization of human rights in Cuba.

Members States taking the floor during the interactive discussion were the Russian Federation, Ghana, Saudi Arabia, Nicaragua, Bolivia, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, China, South Africa, Malaysia, Qatar, India, Jordan, Pakistan, Canada, France, the Philippines, Chile, Switzerland, Bahrain, Mexico, Azerbaijan, Djibouti, Bangladesh, Slovakia, Italy, the Netherlands and Ukraine.

Observer States participating in the discussion were Algeria, Israel, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the United Arab Emirates, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Venezuela, Bhutan, Iran, Libya, Sri Lanka, Panama, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe, Tunisia, Jamaica, Belarus, Serbia, Yemen, Vietnam, Trinidad and Tobago, Colombia, Uzbekistan, Austria, Syria, Palestine, Sudan, Senegal, Honduras, Thailand, Côte d’Ivoire and the Czech Republic.

A number of delegations also posed specific recommendations.

I. The majority of the delegations encouraged Cuba to share its international cooperation experiences with respect to health care, praised Cuba’s health care system.

II. Several delegations encouraged Cuba to live up to its Millennium Development Goals (MGDs), including the basic right to food.

III. The island state was also encouraged to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC); to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; to ratify the International Convention on economic, social and cultural rights; and to abolish the death penalty; to extend a standing invitation to the United Nations Special Procedures; to give importance to human rights training for government officials at all levels; to give access to its prisons by independent organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC); to establish a recurrent system of review of its prisons by the United Nations or other relevant international observers; to ensure the right to equality before the courts and tribunals, and to a fair trial; and to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture.

IV. Cuba was also encouraged to enhance human rights education through public awareness campaigns; to lift restrictions on rights on the freedom of expression and show greater tolerance for Cubans to express opposing views peacefully; to release all remaining political prisoners and to reintegrate them into the community; to guarantee that independent journalists, human rights defenders and political dissidents had the possibility to exercise their basic freedoms without the risk of harassment, intimidation or persecution; and to refrain to using such laws such as dangerousness, enemy propaganda and contempt for authority to restrict the rights of freedom of expression and association.

V. States recommended that Cuba continue programs aimed at ensuring the human rights of disabled persons; continue programs for the rights of the elderly; consider ratifying the Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers and All Members of Their Families; address the root causes of prostitution by adopting measures enhancing women’s economic opportunities; to continue its best practices on gender equality and women’s empowerment at all levels; take the necessary measures to combat sexual exploitation by adopting legislation providing legal protection for victims of such acts, especially children; and strengthen national capacities to assist victims of domestic violence.

VI. To continue efforts aimed at ensuring respect for freedom of conscience and belief for all Cubans; to protect and protect cultural rights; to continue its policy of tolerance and respect towards all religions without any distinction; to promote the active participation of civil society in the follow up to the UPR; to develop and implement an inter-agency mechanism with participation of civil society; to create a national human rights institution in line with the Paris Principles; to continue its commitment to support initiatives in favour of the right of peoples to self-determination, as well as in its consistent support for all efforts aiming at putting an end to all types of foreign occupation; and to share experiences and best practices in preparedness to prevent and mitigate the impacts of hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The UPR Working Group is scheduled to adopt the report of Cuba on Monday, 9 February. The Human Rights Council began its review of the human rights record for Saudi Arabia today Feb. 6, and is expected to adopt councils report on human rights in Russian Federation this afternoon.

The chair for the United States has remained empty throughout the review process. Acting spokesman for the U.S. State Department said yesterday that the United States has not decided whether or not to support the Council. The human rights record of the United States will not be up for review by the Human Rights Council until the Council’s ninth session in 2010.

EHC / EHC
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Al-Masakin News Agency
http://almasakinnewsagency.wordpress.com/