Back council seat rights groups urged
By MANDEEP SINGH
Published: 19th May 2008
HUMAN rights organisations were yesterday urged to support Bahrain’s election to the United Nations Human Rights Council for their own benefit.
Permanent Representative of Bahrain to UN Industrial Development Organisation in Geneva Abdulla Abdullatif Abdulla said Bahrain’s election to the council would help satisfy societies’ demands.
Back council seat rights groups urged
By MANDEEP SINGH
Published: 19th May 2008
HUMAN rights organisations were yesterday urged to support Bahrain’s election to the United Nations Human Rights Council for their own benefit.
Permanent Representative of Bahrain to UN Industrial Development Organisation in Geneva Abdulla Abdullatif Abdulla said Bahrain’s election to the council would help satisfy societies’ demands.
The UN official was reacting to the societies’ pledge on Saturday that they would not support Bahrain’s candidacy for a seat on the council unless the government improved civil liberties.
“What the election will also do is to help us focus more on what we have to do and give the country more credibility,” said Mr Abdulla, speaking from Geneva.
“As it is, the campaign is going very well and we are sure we stand a very good chance of making it to the council.”
He said the election would be a historic moment for the country.
“We would then be the only Arab nation to have been on the council twice since it was formed in 2006,” he said.
A Bahrain delegation will be in New York in time for the election, which will take place on Wednesday at the UN headquarters, where the 192-member General Assembly will vote.
Mr Abdulla had earlier said that Bahrain stood a good chance of being elected, especially after it had a very good Universal Periodic Review (UPR) recently.
He was responding at the time of the criticism by Freedom House and UN Watch, two human rights groups, that opposed Bahrain’s candidature, describing it as “unwarranted and unfounded”.
The Geneva-based council is composed of regional groups that give dominance to Africa and Asia, each with 13 countries. If they vote as a 26-member bloc, they have an automatic majority.
Western Europe and North America are together represented by seven countries.
The General Assembly will elect 15 members to the 47-member council – four each from Africa and Asia, three from Latin America, and two each from Eastern Europe and Western nations.
Candidates must get 97 votes – an absolute majority – to win.
Six candidates – Bahrain, East Timor, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea and Sri Lanka – are vying for four Asian seats.
UN Watch had said in its report that Bahrain among others had lent international credibility to repressive governments and that they routinely violated the rights of their own citizens.
Freedom House said some of the contestants had a “questionable” human rights record.
A group of 11 of Bahrain’s political and human rights organisations on Saturday demanded the government make a firm commitment to ratify several international conventions and recommendations.
They said these included introducing legislation to improve the rights of migrant workers such as housemaids, prevent racial discrimination, give redress to alleged victims of torture, introduce citizenship equality and protect the role of human rights activists.
The demands will be presented to Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Nazar Al Baharna during a meeting today.
The signatories include the Bahrain Human Rights Society, now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights and various political societies.
mandeep@gdn.com.bh
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