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/